Rory McIlroy was aware of Saudi's LIV exit plans in March
Shortly after Tuesday lunchtime on the local clocks at Aronimink Golf Club, the PGA Championship’s social accounts posted footage of the year’s first major winner getting through some wedge work on the range.
The caption read “First few swings of the week for Rory McIlroy”. Wrong.
A good five hours earlier McIlroy had emerged through the clubhouse car park, dressed athleisurely in a hoodie and shorts.
He was already swinging. Slung over his shoulders was a drawstring bag emblazoned with the European Ryder Cup logo.
The subtlety of that jab would be repeated when he got to the media tent and took aim at another favourite foe — the LIV deserters.
McIlroy's post-Masters sojourn, relaxed weeks filled with a state dinner at the White House and his Hollywood cameo helping batter the box office, was officially over.
McIlroy was back in major week mode and, despite winning two of the last five of golf’s biggest prizes, he still had just enough piss and vinegar to fuel him.
Repping Team Europe as he strode through the doors was surely a nod and wink to the week’s organisers — the PGA of America.
They oversaw last September’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage when McIlroy and his wife Erica had been berated and bawled at by locals with, initially at least, little in the way of apology from PGA President Don Rea Jr.
The hapless figurehead, who has been at the centre of a string of embarrassing moments, is in lame duck territory and will be mostly hidden this week, despite his term not ending until later this year.
McIlroy, of course, will be front and centre all week in the northern fringes of Philadelphia. He was the main draw on Tuesday’s media schedule and after 10 minutes of queries on his extended break, the risks and rewards of Aronimink, Scottie Scheffler’s brilliance and that Devil Wears Prada 2 cameo, the three letters which McIlroy knew were coming duly did.
Saudi Arabia’s PIF is no longer on a wartime footing with the game of golf. The retreat is in full effect with their well-rewarded LIV mercenaries left in a limbo. Even in this post-peace era, some wartime habits die hard for McIlroy who was soon jabbing again.
“Yessss. Love talking about this Bob,” McIlroy smiled with a super-sized helping of irony to veteran reporter Bob Harig.
In the hectic days when a stunning pact was agreed between LIV and the PGA Tour, the Saudis swung from enemies to possible investors and McIlroy had strongly backed the idea of PIF billions streaming into the sport. Now that they have abruptly turned off the taps altogether, the Masters champion was comfortable admitting he’d erred.
“I'm glad I was wrong. I can admit when I'm wrong, and that was one that I did get wrong,” said McIlroy, who has shown both more of a grip on geopolitics and its impacts on sport as well as a willingness to discuss same.
“I think it was always a possibility to happen. Look, everyone knows with everything that's happening in the Middle East, that had a lot to do; but whenever you have funding tied so much to the geopolitical landscape in the world, that's a tricky road to navigate.”
This was where McIlroy appeared to enjoy himself — suggesting he was aware of Saudi intentions to cut the cord long before the pros currently employed by LIV did.
“Their priorities shifted, and that leaves LIV in a pretty precarious spot, but that was always a possibility,” he added. “I feel like a lot of us in this room, including me, we almost knew before the players did that this was going to happen. I was hearing about this back in March, April time.
“I have friends over there. One of my best friends, Ricky [McCormick], caddies for Tom McKibbin, who's over there, and I would talk to him about what was going on. I was saying to Ricky, even before Mexico, ‘Have you guys heard any of this stuff?’ He was like, ‘No, everything seems okay over here’. It feels like the rug was pulled from under their feet and everyone was blindsided by it.
“But that's the risk that those guys chose to take. It leaves…a lot of uncertainty in the air right now. If they do somehow get a schedule together for next year, it's going to look drastically different to what it's looked like over the last four years.”
In his 18th trip to what scheduling-wise used to be the year’s fourth-major and stature-wise remains so, McIlroy had appeared particularly comfortable, a blister affecting the baby toe on his right foot apparently sorted with some DIY treatment.
Once he actually got out on the course that hope faded fast. McIlroy was forced to abandon his practice round after just three holes after appearing to experience significant discomfort around the issue.
Earlier, he had told Irish and European media how he’d torn the nail off the toe in question — “softened it up in the shower and just ripped it off” — even taking off his sock to show the results.
Yet the right shoe and sock were off again in the afternoon when McIlroy had appeared to be walking gingerly on the third tee box. He then inspected the toe in the third fairway before pulling the plug on the practice round on the next hole.
A more qualified medical approach is likely to be sought out in a hurry.
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