Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy chat at the 2023 Masters Tournament. | Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images
Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have grown apart in recent months as the PGA Tour tries to piece together its future.
Ahead of this week’s Wells Fargo Championship, Rory McIlroy spoke at length about the possibility of rejoining the PGA Tour Policy Board, from which he resigned in November.
He has grown “impatient” with the PGA Tour’s current negotiations with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) and believes that a deal must get done soon. McIlroy also believes golf’s current divide is unsustainable. Hence, the Northern Irishman felt his return would not only be welcomed but also help professional golf as a whole.
Current board members did not feel the same.
“It got pretty complicated and pretty messy, and I think with the way it happened, I think it opened up some old wounds and scar tissue from things that have happened before,” McIlroy said Wednesday.
“There was a subset of people on the board who were maybe uncomfortable with me coming back on for some reason. Yeah, I think that the best course of action is if, you know, there are some people on there who aren’t comfortable with me coming back on, then… I just sort of keep doing what I am doing.”
Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images
Rory McIlroy shakes hands with Patrick Cantlay’s caddie, Joe LaCava, after Saturday afternoon fourball matches concluded at the 2023 Ryder Cup.
Patrick Cantlay, whom McIlroy has not had a friendly history with; Jordan Spieth, whom McIlroy disagreed with at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am over the PIF and at The Players over a drop; and Tiger Woods, somewhat surprisingly, did not want McIlroy back, according to Joel Beall of Golf Digest.
Cantlay and Spieth’s hesitation to bring McIlroy on board is not surprising. But considering Woods and McIlroy will launch TGL together in 2025, the 15-time major winner’s dissent certainly raises some eyebrows.
In fact, Beall reports that the Woods and McIlroy relationship “has soured” over the past six months. Each player has a differing view of how professional golf should proceed into the future, with McIlroy championing the need for a world golf tour. He laid out this dream scenario in Dubai in January.
Woods, meanwhile, has not publically laid out his visions for the future of the PGA Tour. Yet, at the Genesis Invitational in February, Woods said that the key stakeholders are assessing numerous options.
“We’re looking into all the different models for pathways back [for LIV Golf players],” Woods said in February.
Photo by Ben Jared/PGA Tour via Getty Images
Tiger Woods speaks ahead of the Genesis Invitational on Feb. 14, 2024.
“What that looks like, what the impact is for the players who have stayed and who have not left, and how we make our product better going forward, there is no answer to that right now. We’re looking at varying degrees of ideas and what that looks like in the short term, we don’t know. We don’t even know in the longer term what that looks like. Trust me, there are daily and weekly emails and talks about this and what this looks like for our tour going forward.”
On the flip side, McIlroy, who has previously said that he “hates” LIV Golf, has reversed course in recent months to resolve the divide. He wants all the same golfers playing alongside one another and would welcome back those who joined LIV Golf.
Perhaps that is where the difference in opinion between Woods and McIlroy lies.
Nevertheless, tensions between PGA Tour brass remain rocky, indicating that negotiations between the tour and the PIF remain far apart. Until the leading players of the PGA Tour can get on the same page, men’s professional golf will remain divided.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
