'I like him. I like him a lot' - Rory McIlroy excited as new PGA Tour CEO gets to work

Russell Henley and Rory McIlroy shake hands on the 18th green after playing their third round in the BMW Championship. Pic: AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough.

The baton was officially passed on Wednesday, with outgoing PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan introducing incoming PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp to field questions in the traditional end-of-season, state-of-the-PGA Tour press conference ahead of the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club.

Rolapp wasted no time in showing that the new boss is welcome to new ideas. His first official act as chief was to announce the formation a nine-member Future Competition Committee to be chaired by Tiger Woods and populated by a range of stakeholders in the game.

“The purpose of this committee is pretty simple – we’re going to design the best professional golf competitive model in the world for the benefit of PGA Tour fans, players and their partners,” Rolapp said.

“It is aimed at a holistic relook of how we compete on the tour. That is inclusive of regular season, postseason and off-season.

"We’re going to focus on the evolution of our competitive model and the corresponding media products and sponsorship elements and model of the entire sport. The goal is not incremental change. The goal is significant change.”

The committee will be made up of six players – Woods, Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas, Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell – and three business advisors: Joe Gorder, the chairman of the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Enterprises boards; John Henry, manager of tour investor Strategic Sports Group; and Theo Epstein, former Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs general manager and senior advisor to Fenway Sports Group.

The PGA Tour already announced its 2026 schedule on Tuesday, but that doesn’t mean Rolapp isn’t willing to make changes before the 2027 season.

“I don’t think I'm going to commit to a specific time,” Rolapp said. “I think the right answer to that is we will take as much time is to get it right, at least the initial time out, but we’re going to aggressively move.

"I would like to put in the right competitive model as soon as we can, but we want to do it right. So however long it takes, we’ll do, while moving aggressively.”

Rolapp – who comes to golf via being second man on the totem pole in the NFL, the most popular sports league in America – said he’s given the committee three “guiding principles” to strive for in its recommendations.

“These principles are key characteristics of what I think will be a successful competitive model going forward,” Rolapp said.

“The first one of those characteristics is competitive parity. All sports, all sports chase competitive parity. The PGA Tour has incredible competitive parity and balance among its players today. We’re going to lean into this while also maintaining another key characteristic of the PGA Tour, meritocracy....

“The second key characteristic is scarcity. A focus on the tour’s top players to compete together more often in events that feel special for fans and feel special for the players.

“Finally, the third principle will be simplicity. Competition should be easy to follow. The regular season and postseason should be connected in a way that builds towards a Tour Championship in a way that all sports fans can understand.”

On the job for only three weeks, Rolapp is still getting up to speed with all of the tour’s shareholders.

Rory McIlroy is one of the 20 or so players Rolapp has sat down with to get to know during his whirlwind on-boarding process, and the reigning Masters champ came away impressed.

“I hadn’t met him up until last week, and I was able to spend a good 90 minutes with him just talking through everything to do with the tour and the whole thing over the past three or four years and what the future looks like,” McIlroy said.

“I like him. I like him a lot. I like that he doesn’t come from golf. I like that he doesn’t have any preconceived ideas of what golf should look like or what the tour should look like. I think he’s going to bring a fresh perspective to everything, and I think he wants to move pretty quick, so I’m excited.”