Rory McIlroy stated he desires the PGA Tour to be extra “cutthroat,” however his take may not be very popular.
Keyur Khamar/PGA TOUR by way of Getty Images
While some PGA Tour execs are questioning if extra gamers ought to be included within the Signature Events, Rory McIlroy desires to make the PGA Tour extra unique.
After the second spherical of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, one of many curcuit’s $20 million occasions which has a area of simply 69 gamers, McIlroy stated he desires to double down on the PGA Tour’s new construction.
“I’m all for making it more cutthroat, more competitive,” he stated after a second-round 70 at Bay Hill. “Probably won’t be very popular for saying this, but I’m all for less players and less Tour cards, and the best of the best.”
His feedback solely underscore the present debate over how a lot the PGA Tour ought to prioritize its stars over the rank-and-file members.
After debuting the designated occasions final yr, eight tournaments with $20 million purses, the Tour modified its total mannequin by elevating these occasions additional by limiting the fields to between 70 and 80 gamers, with new methods of qualifying for them. The fields are made up of the highest 50 within the earlier yr’s FedEx Cup standings, the highest 10 gamers within the present yr’s standings not in any other case exempt, the 5 finest performers from latest non-Signature Events, present yr winners and high 30 OWGR gamers not in any other case exempt, in that order.
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But thus far, solely one of many 4 Signature occasions which have been performed, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, has had a full area of 80 gamers. This week’s occasion at Bay Hill began with simply 69 gamers (which means Nick Dunlap performed the primary two rounds alone).
The small area comes because the PGA Tour is struggling to get all of its members into a few of its different occasions. The Korn Ferry Tour now awards 30 PGA Tour playing cards — down from 25 plus an extra 25 from the Korn Ferry Tour Finals — whereas the highest 10 gamers from the DP World Tour and 5 gamers from PGA Tour Q-School additionally earn membership now. All of those classes are sorted with the highest 125 in final yr’s FedEx Cup Fall rankings, and dozens of different classes to create the PGA Tour priority ranking.
Currently, greater than 200 gamers maintain what is taken into account “full” membership on the PGA Tour, with dozens extra holding conditional membership.
Last yr’s main points-getter on the Korn Ferry Tour, Ben Kohles hasn’t gotten into any Signature Events and missed out on the popular WM Phoenix Open. None of the DP World Tour graduates besides Mathieu Pavon, who received the Farmers, had performed in a single till Sami Valimaki teed it up at Bay Hill this week.
PGA Tour Q-School qualifiers are having a good more durable time. Harrison Endycott, who medaled at Q-School final December, is making simply his fourth begin of the season this week’s Puerto Rico Open, being performed reverse the API. He was ninth on the alternate checklist finally week’s Coginzant Classic.
The PGA Tour has already expanded the sector sizes for the Valspar Championship and Valero Texas Open to accommodate extra gamers.
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But McIlroy’s thought is that there ought to be even fewer membership classes and thus fewer members, though he restated his place Saturday admitting he didn’t know the precise quantity.
“I haven’t thought about it that hard,” McIlroy stated. “I’m all for extra cutthroat and extra aggressive and attempting to provide pathways to the youthful era. So, by means of Korn Ferry Tour, by means of PGA Tour U, by means of … I simply really feel like there’s a whole lot of classes on Tour that persons are kind of nonetheless benefiting off what they did like 5 or ten years in the past.
“I feel like the most competitive professional golf tour in the world, you should have to come out and prove yourself year after year after year.”
This week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational additionally contains a 36-hole minimize, although 5 of the opposite seven Signature Events don’t.
“But if it’s important enough — if it’s that important to Tiger and Jack and if Arnold were alive, if it was important enough for him, then it’s their tournament, at the end of the day, and they can do whatever they want,” McIlroy stated. “I could have went either way, but if it’s important enough to those guys, then we’ll have a cut.”
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Just 10 gamers have been minimize at Bay Hill this week, with the highest 50 and ties advancing, plus anybody inside 10 pictures of the lead. The subsequent Signature Event, the RBC Heritage, is held the week after the Masters and won’t have a minimize. Nor will the Wells Fargo Championship or the Travelers Championship.
Ironically, smaller fields and no cuts — amongst different variations — have been a few of the predominant promoting factors of the PGA Tour’s predominant competitor, LIV Golf. McIlroy, till very not too long ago, was a robust critic of the Saudi-backed Tour however softened his stance in latest months.
On Saturday, he pitched one other related idea to LIV Golf, a world tour.
“I would say take the best events from all over the world and try to create something through that, because those events still have history and legacy and tradition and all the things that are still very important in golf,” McIlroy stated. “I think there’s been some experiments with creating new tournaments out of nothing, and I don’t know if they have really captured the imagination of the general public.”
