Ahead of this week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans, Rory McIlroy perfectly epitomized the greedy state of professional golf. He only needed two words to do it: Never enough.
“I think the one thing we’ve learned in golf over the last two years is there’s never enough,” McIlroy told reporters at TPC Louisiana.
McIlroy was responding to a question about PGA Tour players receiving millions of dollars in equity for staying loyal to the PGA Tour and refusing LIV Golf’s temptations. A few hours later, The Telegraph reported McIlroy will cash in with a $50 million gift from PGA Tour Enterprises.
It’s a hefty bonus, sure, but it’s nothing compared to what McIlroy could’ve cashed in with a move to LIV Golf. Recent rumors indicated the Northern Irishman was offered $850 million to join the rival league, but he denied he was ever contacted by Greg Norman or his team. Still, if McIlroy wanted to join forces with Norman, it’s safe to assume his contract would be close to that $850 million figure.
Even without LIV’s endless buckets of cash, McIlroy has earned more than $80 million on the PGA Tour and his net worth is close to $200 million. But Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and others were in a similar boat and that was – as McIlroy eloquently put it – never enough.
Despite his disparaging remarks about LIV Golf in the past, McIlroy is supportive of a merger between LIV and the PGA to re-unify professional golf. In fact, he’s about to be at the forefront of the operation.
McIlroy is set to return to the PGA Tour’s policy board and his main goal is to sew professional golf back together again.
“Yeah, I think it’s the only way forward for the game of golf,” McIlroy said this week. “We obviously realize 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.”
