Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm Credit LIV Golf For PGA Tour Improvements

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2023 The Players Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy
Jon Rahm (L) and Rory McIlroy speak during a press conference prior to THE PLAYERS Championship at Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass on Mar 7, 2023 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (Photo by Ben Jared for the PGA TOUR via Getty Images)

Pro Golf Weekly launched in 2016 and during this time the PGA Tour largely flowed from one season to the next with a few elite events sprinkled among a slate of mostly unmemorable corporate sponsored exhibitions. Sure, some of the tour events were more stacked (Hartford) and exciting (Phoenix) than others but rarely did the tour deliver fields with all its best players, similar to majors.

Everything changed, though, with the launch of LIV Golf in 2022.

After losing some of its most marketable and familiar stars (e.g. Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Cam Smith, Bryson DeChambeau, and Brooks Koepka, among many others), the tour immediately scheduled eight “elevated” events for 2023, featuring massive purses and stacked fields. In 2024 they are cementing what amounts to a LIV Golf league inside the PGA Tour, by reducing the field sizes and removing cuts (guaranteed payday).

These drastic changes never would have happened without the emergence of LIV Golf, a reality even LIV critic Rory McIlroy acknowledged.

2023 The Players Rory McIlroy
Rory McIlroy speaks during a press conference prior to THE PLAYERS Championship at Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass on Mar 7, 2023 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (Photo by Ben Jared for the PGA TOUR via Getty Images)

“I’m not going to sit here and lie; I think the emergence of LIV, or the emergence of a competitor to the PGA Tour, has benefited everyone that plays elite professional golf,” said McIlroy, ahead of the PLAYERS Championship.

“I think when you’ve been the biggest golf league in the biggest market in the world for the last 60 years, there’s not a lot of incentive to innovate.

“This has caused a ton of innovation at the PGA Tour, and what was quite, I would say, an antiquated system is being revamped to try to mirror where we’re at in the world in the 21st century with the media landscape and just every — you know, the PGA Tour isn’t just competing with LIV Golf or other sports. It’s competing with Instagram and TikTok and everything else that’s trying to take eyeballs away from the PGA Tour as a product.

“So, yeah, you know, LIV coming along, it’s definitely had a massive impact on the game, but I think everyone who’s a professional golfer is going to benefit from it going forward.”

2023 The Players Jon Rahm
Jon Rahm speaks during a press conference prior to THE PLAYERS Championship at Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass on Mar 7, 2023 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (Photo by Ben Jared for the PGA TOUR via Getty Images)

World No. 1 Jon Rahm concurred: “Oh, it’s LIV Golf. I mean, without a doubt. Without LIV Golf, this wouldn’t have happened.

“So to an extent, like I’ve said before, we should be thankful this threat has made the PGA Tour want to change things. I think I said it last week, as well; I wish it didn’t come to the PGA Tour being, you know, under fire from somebody else to make those changes and make things better for the players, but I guess it is what we needed.

“So, yeah, it is because of LIV Golf, otherwise we wouldn’t have seen any of this.”

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1 COMMENT

  1. Yes, the LIV has resulted in many improvements in the PGA Tour.  But The Players Tournament is missing the op Three finishers from last year.  It’s totally unfair to ban these players. It also is mean and vindictive to take away from Cam Smith all the perks he earned from winning the Players last year.  The LIV is a world tour and is not in competition with the PGAT’s big tournaments.  The players should be allowed to play in other tournaments in their off-weeks.  I hope the PGAT will reinstate the LIV players and end this banning foolishness.

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