Rory McIlroy will not be returning to the PGA Tour policy board, citing ‘a subset of people were maybe uncomfortable with me coming back on’.
Rory McIlroy has confirmed he will not be returning to the PGA Tour policy board in a shock press conference ahead of this week’s Wells Fargo Championship at Quall Hollow.
The update comes just hours after a wild report emerged in Golfweek, claiming an anonymous tournament director on the PGA Tour was urging McIlroy to return to the board to prevent Patrick Cantlay from ‘ruining’ the circuit.
McIlroy, 34, told reporters ahead of this week’s $20m signature event, that despite putting his hand up for a swift return to the PGA Tour policy board, he was unsuccessful in his bid.
The World No.2 admits there were a group of people on the board that were ‘uncomfortable’ with him coming back.
McIlroy decided to step away from his role on the board at the end of last season so that he could concentrate more on his golf game and spend extra time with his family.
But the Northern Irishman is understood to have been eager to return to the board in a bid to help the PGA Tour out in its ongoing framework agreement deal with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF).
It was rumoured during McIlroy’s team victory alongside Shane Lowry last time out at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans that he would be making a quick return to the board ahead of next week’s US PGA.
McIlroy also confirmed two weeks ago that PGA Tour, PIF talks had made little progress over the past eight months.
Webb Simpson was rumoured to be the player making way for McIlroy’s return to the board, which also includes Cantlay, Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth, Adam Scott and Peter Malnati.
But 25-time PGA Tour winner McIlroy confirmed his return is very much off the cards, at least this season, during his latest presser.
McIlroy told the media:
“I think there was a subset of people on the board that were maybe uncomfortable with me coming back on for some reason.
“Yeah, I think that the best, I think the best course of action is if, you know, there’s some people on there that aren’t comfortable with me coming back on, then I think Webb [Simpson] just stays on and sees out his term, and I think he’s gotten to a place where he’s comfortable with doing that and I just sort of keep doing what I’m doing.
“So yeah, I put my hand up to help and it was — I wouldn’t say it was rejected, it was a complicated process to get through to put me back on there. So that’s all fine, no hard feelings and we’ll all move on.”
He was then pressed by one reporter about whether he could still affect change from the outside looking in, to which he replied about his impatience over the PGA Tour, PIF merger.
McIlroy then likened the ongoing merger to that of the Good Friday Agreement across Ireland in 1998.
The Ulsterman said:
“So in terms of I would say I’m impatient because I think we’ve got this window of opportunity to get it done, because both sides from a business perspective I wouldn’t say need to get it done, but it makes sense.
“And I just think — I sort of liken it to like when Northern Ireland went through the peace process in the ’90s and the Good Friday Agreement, neither side was happy.
“Catholics weren’t happy, Protestants weren’t happy, but it brought peace and then you just sort of learn to live with whatever has been negotiated, right?
“That was in 1998 or whatever it was and 20, 25, 30 years ahead, my generation doesn’t know any different. It’s just this is what it’s always been like and we’ve never known anything but peace.
“That’s sort of how I — it’s my little I guess way of trying to think about it and trying to make both sides see that there could be a compromise here.
“Yeah, it’s probably not going to feel great for either side, but if it’s a place where the game of golf starts to thrive again and we can all get back together, then I think that’s ultimately a really good thing.”
McIlroy starts a warm 7/1 tournament favourite at this week’s Wells Fargo Championship.
He has won this event a record three times – 2010, 2015 and 2021.
