Rory McIlroy – Champions League for golf would ‘change the game’،
In four-time major champion Rory McIlroy's perfect world, the best men's professional golf players would play on a premier international tour with other tours around the world feeding into it.
Golfers would have to play well enough to stay on the upper tour, and golfers on the lower tours could work their way up there.
“The way I see things, it's a bit like [the] The Champions League,” McIlroy told reporters Wednesday, referring to European soccer's biggest club competition. “It's like the best of the best in Europe, and then all the other leagues feed off that . There are a lot of different tours that are attracting interest and a lot of great players, but if you want to create something that has real value for golf, I think it's this top tour and all the other tours feed there. “
McIlroy was one of the PGA Tour's most vocal supporters during its battle with the LIV Golf League for the world's best players. He resigned from the PGA Tour board last year.
Now, McIlroy's vision for the future of the sport – as the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund attempt to finalize a deal to combine their business assets – has a much broader canvas wide.
“If this world tour comes to fruition in the next few years, could you imagine bringing the top 70 or 80 golfers in the world to India for a tournament?” » McIlroy said while speaking before his defense at the Dubai Desert Classic. “I think [it] would change the game and the perception of the game in a country like that. Again, there are many opportunities for globalization.
“I've said this over the last few months, but golf is at an inflection point, and if golf doesn't do it now, I'm afraid it never will and we kind of have this fractured landscape forever. “
In Dubai last week, McIlroy told Golf Digest that his dream scenario would involve playing tournaments in untapped markets like Australia, South Africa and Japan, instead of almost all of the biggest sporting events take place in the United States.
“I think the opportunity here is global,” McIlroy said Wednesday. “Look, there are still massive events happening in America, and I think they have a huge history and tradition and need to be preserved. But there's a lot of opportunity elsewhere.”
McIlroy's comments echo what outgoing DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley told reporters in Dubai this week.
“The growth of gaming is global,” Pelley said. “I think that's where the focus needs to be. This is a global game. Every growing company wants to be global. What I would like to see is the game becoming more unified with a global strategy. I think that the PGA Tour we realize that [going] the world is the key to growth. They've heard me say it once or twice. »
What is the biggest obstacle to this, according to McIlroy?
“I just think of different interests,” McIlroy said. “There are a lot of different interests in the game, and I think what we need to do first is align the interests, align the interests of the players, the company, the fans and the media and try to align everyone's interests. And then once you do that, then you can move forward. So it's the alignment of interests, which is the big key to trying to get to that dream scenario.
