{"id":17851,"date":"2024-01-03T17:57:32","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T14:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/17851\/rory-mcilroy-says-he-was\/"},"modified":"2024-01-03T17:57:33","modified_gmt":"2024-01-03T14:57:33","slug":"rory-mcilroy-says-he-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/?p=17851","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy says he was too &#8216;judgmental&#8217; of LIV defectors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rory McIlroy says he was too &#8216;judgmental&#8217; of LIV defectors\u060c<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Four-time major champion Rory McIlroy says he regrets being too quick to judge players who joined LIV Golf and now accepts the Saudi-backed tour is part of the sport.<\/p>\n<p>McIlroy has been a vocal critic since the breakaway tour launched in 2022 and has recruited a host of big names, sparking a rift that has threatened to tear golf apart.  He previously accused some golfers who left the PGA Tour of being duped and said he would rather retire than join LIV.<\/p>\n<p>But McIlroy now says it&#39;s no longer up to him to fight this battle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think at this point I was maybe a little critical of the guys who went to LIV golf at the beginning, and I think that was a little bit of a mistake on my part because I realize Now that not everyone is in my position or in Tiger Woods&#39; position,&#8221; McIlroy told the &#8220;Stick to <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/tag\/football\/\"   title=\"Football\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">Football<\/a>&#8221; podcast.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline editorial float-r\" data-behavior=\"article_related\">\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#39;s Choice<\/h2>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>&#8220;We all become professionals to make a living playing the sports we play, and I think that&#39;s what I&#39;ve realized over the last couple of years. I can&#39;t judge the people who made that decision. &#8220;<\/p>\n<p>LIV Golf launched to much fanfare and simultaneous cries of \u201csportswashing\u201d in 2022, with winner Charl Schwartzel taking home $4.75 million for winning the inaugural event in London \u2013 the biggest prize in golf history .<\/p>\n<p>American Talor Gooch was the overall champion at LIV Golf last year, earning around $36 million from a $300 million prize pool.  Although the PGA Tour raised its prize money in response, McIlroy said it was a futile battle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wouldn&#39;t say I lost the fight against LIV, but I just accepted the fact that it is now part of our sport,\u201d he said.  \u201cCompetition is a good thing to help improve golf as a whole, but the PGA Tour competing with LIV and Saudi money is completely unsustainable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ll never <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/tag\/win\/\"   title=\"win\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">win<\/a> a fight if you make money, because we\u2019ve seen it in other sports where no one spends money like the Saudis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Peace, of sorts, broke out last year when a surprising merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf was announced, although negotiations are ongoing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI realized that if people or a sovereign wealth fund spend money on your sport, ultimately it&#39;s a good thing,\u201d McIlroy said of the Public Investment Fund (PIF) from Saudi Arabia.  \u201cBut you want them to spend it the right way and spend it on things that are important to the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInstead of giving $100 million to someone, why not invest $50 million in a grassroots program for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club or the <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/tag\/united\/\"   title=\"United\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">United<\/a> States Golf Association (USGA), so you can help develop the game, not spend it, try to buy talent.<\/p>\n<p>McIlroy says it&#39;s not his job to &#39;fight the good fight,&#39; but he still takes issue with players &#39;talking bullshit&#39; about the PGA Tour or European DP World Tour after signing for LIV .<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t blame anyone for going and taking the money and doing something different, but don\u2019t try to burn the place down on the way out,\u201d he said.  \u201cI think it\u2019s just created this division that hopefully will stop soon because I think it\u2019s the best thing for golf as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>Information from Reuters was used in this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rory McIlroy says he was too &#8216;judgmental&#8217; of LIV defectors\u060c Four-time major champion Rory McIlroy says he regrets being too quick to judge players who joined LIV Golf and now accepts the Saudi-backed tour is part of the sport. McIlroy has been a vocal critic since the breakaway tour launched in 2022 and has recruited [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8642,8641,2690,2336,3190],"class_list":["post-17851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","tag-defectors","tag-judgmental","tag-liv","tag-mcilroy","tag-rory"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17853,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17851\/revisions\/17853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}