Rory McIlroy was told to ‘f*** off’ by a fellow PGA Tour golfer during an explosive meeting in the wake of the bombshell announcement that the tour would be merging with Saudi-backed LIV rivals.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan assembled his stars on Tuesday night – before this week’s Canadian Open in Toronto – in an attempt to justify the shock declaration of peace in golf’s civil war.
McIlroy and Tiger Woods both turned down huge financial offers from LIV Golf and established themselves as the biggest supporters of the PGA Tour. But both were kept in the dark about the shock deal announced on Tuesday.
Monahan faced calls to resign at the players’ meeting – which lasted for 75 minutes and was described as ‘intense and certainly heated’ – with his previous comments that anyone who took LIV money would never play on the PGA Tour again cited and greeted with applause, according to former player Johnson Wagner.
Golf Channel reported that Wagner had access to an audio feed of the meeting and that McIlroy told world number 227 Grayson Murray to ‘just play better’ as Murray criticised Monahan.
Rory McIlroy (left) was reportedly told to ‘f*** off’ by fellow PGA Tour golfer Grayson Murray (right) on Tuesday as the pair clashed during a discussion about golf’s historic merge of tours
The PGA Tour and DP World Tour announced they would merge with LIV and end golf’s civil war
McIlroy fires out of the bunker during the Canadian Open in Toronto on Wednesday morning
Murray responded by telling McIlroy to ‘f*** off’. Fellow player Wesley Bryan later confirmed the exchange on social media but added: ‘They were cordial and pleasant post-meeting.
‘We chatted as a group of players and Shape Kapsel we were laughing about the comment. No beef or hard feelings either way.’
Fellow players reacted with surprise and a sense of betrayal at the news that the PGA Tour and DP World Tour are merging their commercial operations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which bankrolls LIV Golf.
The announcement came after 12 months of unprecedented disruption in the men’s professional game following the launch of LIV, which held its first event in June 2022 in England.
Monahan accepted that he will be labelled a ‘hypocrite’ but insisted the players who remained loyal to the PGA Tour had made the right decision.
‘They have helped re-architect the future of the PGA Tour, they have moved us to a more competitive model,’ Monahan said.
McIlroy, pictured with wife Erica Stoll, has been one of the loudest voices against the LIV Tour
PGA Tour chief Jay Monahan held a meeting to justify the decision to his golfers on Tuesday
‘We have significantly invested in our business in 2023, we’re going to do so in ’24. (But) we’ve had to invest back in our business through our reserves. Between our reserves, the legal fees, our underpin and our commitment to the DP World Tour and their legal fees, it’s been significant.
‘But this puts us in a position where we’ve got capital that we can deploy to the benefit of our members and through our tournaments, and it gives us capital to deploy in growth businesses that ultimately will generate a return that we’ll reinvest in our players.’
Asked if the likes of Woods and McIlroy would be compensated for turning down lucrative offers from LIV, or whether those who took massive pay-outs to join the breakaway would have to pay that money back, Monahan said: ‘I think those are all the serious conversations that we’re going to have.
‘Ultimately everything needs to be considered. Ultimately what you’re talking about is an equalisation over time and I think that’s a fair and reasonable concept.’
No responses yet