4-time main championship winner Rory McIlroy is poised to return to the PGA Tour’s coverage board, pending a vote by the board, which might come as early as this week, sources confirmed to ESPN on Tuesday.
One of many PGA Tour’s most vocal supporters throughout its three-year battle with LIV Golf, McIlroy abruptly resigned as a participant director on the tour’s influential coverage board in November.
He’s anticipated to interchange coverage board participant director Webb Simpson, who intends to step away earlier than his two-year time period expires in 2025.
McIlroy’s potential return comes at a time when the PGA Tour is making an attempt to barter a closing settlement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund, which is financing the rival LIV Golf League.
McIlroy, the No. 2 golfer on the planet, beforehand joined the tour’s coverage board in 2022 and was anticipated to serve by 2024. He cited private {and professional} commitments in making his resolution to go away the board in November.
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With gamers from each side bickering about cash and what the game’s future must be, TV scores for PGA Tour occasions are down about 20% this season. Even the Masters, the primary main championship of the season, wasn’t immune from golf followers’ fatigue. TV scores for the ultimate spherical at Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership earlier this month (9.58 million viewers) have been the bottom since 2021 (9.45 million).
“I do know this is not a be-all, end-all, however if you happen to have a look at the TV scores of the PGA Tour this yr, they’re down 20% throughout the board,” McIlroy stated on the Valero Texas Open this month. “That is a fifth. That is huge. I might say the numbers on LIV aren’t nice both when it comes to the folks tuning in.
“I simply suppose with the combating and all the things that is went on over the previous couple years, persons are simply getting actually fatigued of it and it is turning folks off males’s skilled golf, and that is not an excellent factor for anybody.”
McIlroy, 34, would additionally be a part of the board of administrators of PGA Tour Enterprises, the for-profit entity the tour launched with Strategic Sports activities Group earlier this yr. The opposite six participant administrators from the tour’s coverage board — Patrick Cantlay, Peter Malnati, Adam Scott, Simpson, Jordan Spieth and Tiger Woods — are serving concurrently on each boards. Former tour member Joe Ogilvie was added as a board liaison.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and coverage board participant administrators met with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan within the Bahamas on March 18.
McIlroy has beforehand met with Al-Rumayyan to debate the way forward for males’s skilled golf. McIlroy stated Al-Rumayyan wished to do the “proper factor” with PIF’s funding in golf.
“I feel I’ve stated this earlier than, I’ve frolicked with Yasir and his — the those that have represented him in LIV I feel have accomplished him a disservice, so [LIV Golf CEO Greg] Norman and people guys,” McIlroy stated on the Gamers Championship in March.
“I see the 2 entities, and I feel there is a huge, I truly suppose there is a actually huge disconnect between PIF and LIV. I feel you bought PIF over right here and LIV are form of over right here doing their very own factor. So the nearer that we are able to get to Yasir, PIF and hopefully finalize that funding, I feel that will likely be a very good factor.”
The Guardian of London first reported McIlroy’s potential return to the PGA Tour coverage board.
McIlroy is competing on this week’s Zurich Basic of New Orleans crew occasion with Eire’s Shane Lowry.
