Photo:Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP
Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP
Rory McIlroy, a longtime critic of LIV Golf, is speaking out about the merger between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed tour.
On Wednesday the 34-year-old golfer met with members of the media, one day after the unexpected news was announced.“It’s hard for me to not sit up here and feel somewhat like a sacrificial lamb and feeling like I’ve put myself out there and this is what happens,” the four-time major winner,who learned about the merger via social media, said.Yet despite widespread reports that McIlroy reportedly turned down $500 million to join LIV, heset the record straight, telling reporters, “I was never offered any money [from LIV]."
Last year,Tiger Woodsrejected an offer “in the neighborhood” of $700 to $800 million to join LIV Golf, the group’s CEOGreg Normanclaimed.
“There’s a lot of things still to be sort of thrashed out,” he said in Toronto, one day before competing in this week’s RBC Canadian Open. “But at least it means that the litigation goes away, which has been a massive burden for everyone that’s involved with the tour and that’s playing the tour, and we can start to work toward some sort of way of unifying the game at the elite level.”
McIlroy continued later: “If you’re thinking about one of the biggest sovereign wealth funds in the world, would you rather have them as a partner or an enemy? At the end of the day, money talks, and you would rather have them as a partner.”
Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images
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Yet the golfer, who is a board member of the PGA Tour, said his mission is to “protect the PGA Tour.”
“I still hate LIV. I hope it goes away and I fully expect that it does and I think that’s where the distinction here is,” he said. “This is the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the PIF. Very different from LIV. All I’ve tried to do is protect what the PGA Tour is and what the PGA Tour stands for, and I think it will continue to do that.”
source: people.com
