Rory McIlroy: I’ll return to PGA board if it helps merger with LIV to progress

Rory McIlroy walks off the eighth green prior to the Zurich Classic of New Orleans

Brian Keogh

Rory McIlroy wants to return to the PGA Tour policy board to help speed up an agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and reunify the game.

But when it comes to reports he could receive $50m (£40m) in equity for staying loyal to the PGA Tour, with Tiger Woods possibly getting $100m (£80m), and whether those numbers would make them feel “validated”, McIlroy said: “I think the one thing we’ve learned in golf over the last two years is there’s never enough.”

Speaking ahead of his debut in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, where he teams up with Shane Lowry, the World No.2 said he believed he had the “connections” that might help the sides come to an agreement.

“I don’t think there’s been much pro­gress in the last eight months, but I was hopeful that there would be,” said McIlroy, who was shocked by last June’s merger announcement between the PGA Tour and PIF and eventually resigned from the board.

But with talks between the PGA Tour and PIF at a standstill following the Stra­tegic Sports Group’s billion-dollar in­vestment in the Tour, McIlroy is willing to step in for Webb Simpson and help break the deadlock.

“I think I could be helpful to the process but only if people want me involved,” he said. “When Webb talked about poten­tially coming off the board, I said if it was something others wanted, I would gladly take that seat.

“I feel like I care a lot, and I have some pretty good experience and good con­nections within the game and around the wider ecosystem.

“But at the end of the day, it’s not quite up to me to just come back on the board. There’s a process that has to be followed.”

Believing that unification is “the only way forward for the game of golf”, McIl­roy said compromise was key.

“Compromise, but also try to articu­late your points as well as you can and try to help people see the benefits of what unification could do for the game and what it could do for this tour in par­ticular,” he said.

“We obviously realise the game is not unified right now for a reason and there’s still some hard feelings and things that need to be addressed.

“But I think at this point, for the good of the game, we all need to put those feel­ings aside and all move forward together.”