Rory McIlroy reveals shocking insight into PIF chairman amid PGA Tour LIV Golf blockbuster

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Rory McIlroy knows who Yasir Al-Rumayyan is and after his Thursday round at the RBC Canadian Open, he provided some surprising details.

As one of the biggest names on the PGA Tour, Rory McIlroy is the guy who answers a lot of the questions surrounding the new merger between the Tour, the DP World Tour and the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. After his first round at the RBC Canadian Open Thursday, he talked about the new chairman of the global golf entity, Yasir Al-Rumayyan.

“I played a pro-am with Yasir in Dubai a few years ago. And then I’ve seen him — I was with him at a Formula 1 race randomly a couple of years ago in Austin. I saw him in Dubai at the end of last year,” McIlroy said.

“So he’s obviously been in and around the golf world and obviously the wider sports world. So he’s sort of, he runs in the same circles as a lot of people that I know.”

Earlier this week, Alan Shipnuck of FirePit Collective wrote a story about LIV Golf, what will happen to that league, and a little more about who Al-Rumayyan is.

Many know who Al-Rumayyan is, and many golfers have interacted with him, like McIlroy.

Al-Rumayyan loves the game of golf and is the man who pushed for the creation of Golf Saudi back in 2019, per Shipnuck’s story. Since he is a fan of the game, it seems that is one of the reasons for his interest in expanding the game and being so involved. His presence doesn’t go unnoticed.

“I would say he’s an avid golfer. I think he really does like the game of golf,” McIlroy said. “He likes playing it. He’s a very impressive man — Harvard Business School. He Runs 7 or 800 billions worth of dollars and invested in a ton of different companies. He’s a brilliant, impressive man.”

McIlroy acknowledges that Al-Rumayyan is someone that has a lot of business knowledge. He knows that the PGA Tour is a business, and at the end of the day, he plays golf for a living.