-
Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Author
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 switch 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 this planet, beforehand joined the tour’s coverage board in 2022 and was anticipated to serve by means of 2024. He cited private {and professional} commitments in making his determination to go away the board in November.
With gamers from each side bickering about cash and what the game’s future needs to 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 when you take a look at the TV scores of the PGA Tour this 12 months, 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 by way of the folks tuning in.
“I simply assume with the combating and every thing 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 a very good factor for anybody.”
McIlroy, 34, would additionally be part of the board of administrators of PGA Tour Enterprises, the for-profit entity the tour launched with Strategic Sports activities Group earlier this 12 months. 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 needed to do the “proper factor” with PIF’s funding in golf.
“I believe I’ve stated this earlier than, I’ve frolicked with Yasir and his — the people who have represented him in LIV I believe have performed 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 believe there is a huge, I truly assume there is a actually huge disconnect between PIF and LIV. I believe 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 believe that will probably 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 group occasion with Eire’s Shane Lowry.
