Rory McIlroy understands as well as anyone why the PGA Tour schedule has changed so often this decade.
The introduction of “signature events” with no cuts and $20 million purses was a direct response to LIV Golf peeling off a cadre of star golfers with the allure of playing less frequently for more guaranteed money.
That essentially created a two-tiered system: elite players and the rank-and-file members, who had fewer opportunities to scrape together FedEx Cup points and maintain tour cards. But under new CEO Brian Rolapp, the PGA Tour is leaning further into the idea. They intend to formalize a “two-track” schedule in 2028 that will raise a handful more events to Tier 1 status and dub the remaining events Tier 2.
Rolapp is expected to meet with players and the press at next week’s Travelers Championship to reveal more details. In the meantime, it was the final topic posed to McIlroy at his press conference before the U.S. Open on Tuesday at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.
“I guess … an event like last week, the Canadian Open, potentially going to one of these track 2s. Track 2 is a glorified Korn Ferry event,” McIlroy said, referring to the developmental Korn Ferry Tour. “That’s what track 2 is going to be. So I don’t think the Canadian Open should be one of those.
“Yeah, I just think there’s going to be certain events that might lose their stature if a sponsor doesn’t pony up $30 million. So that’s the tough thing.”
A proponent of playing national opens and preserving their importance in the game, McIlroy twice won the Canadian Open but did not play the tournament last week in order to focus on U.S. Open prep.
Whether the PGA Tour’s “Track 1” players will be allowed to play “Track 2” events at all has yet to be worked out. For example, if the CJ Cup Byron Nelson outside Dallas is relegated to the lower track, will Scottie Scheffler or Jordan Spieth be given the option to play their hometown event?
Don’t ask McIlroy, who hasn’t served as a player director on the PGA Tour Policy Board since 2023. He is also not part of the Future Competition committee aiding Rolapp in making schedule decisions.
“I’m not in those rooms,” McIlroy said. “I don’t know. I play my schedule, and I’ll continue to play my schedule, which is getting less and less as the years go on.”
Two weeks ago, McIlroy described himself as a “part-timer” when it comes to building his own schedule, picking which PGA Tour and DP World Tour events he’d like to play in a given year.
It’s hardly the first time McIlroy has picked nits with the tour’s schedule. In the first year of the signature events (then “elevated” events), players who qualified were required to play in them with the option of skipping one. McIlroy skipped two and was docked $3 million.
McIlroy mused about the drastic changes that have reshaped golf and traced them back to LIV, which itself faces an uncertain future following the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund’s withdrawal of financial backing.
“Yeah, it’s funny,” McIlroy said. “Like I think, as they’ve done all this work, you start to realize that the way the Tour was before LIV came along was actually pretty good. It was a pretty good structure, and everything sort of worked pretty well.
“LIV created this false economy where we had to up prize funds and had to cut fields and try to support the top players and all that stuff, which I think needed to happen because that was the only way to retain talent at the time, but now that LIV looks like it’s less of a threat, I think, as I said, the old ways of the PGA Tour weren’t actually that bad.”
RETURN TO LONG ISLAND
McIlroy had nothing but praise for the New York-area fans who’ve come through Shinnecock for practice rounds thus far, nine months after his last visit to Long Island caused a much different reaction.
At the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, McIlroy and his wife Erica were the target of relentless taunts that veered into verbal abuse at times. McIlroy said his wife at one point was hit by a beer tossed by a fan. The stir was mishandled from the start and PGA of America president Don Rea, who came under heavy criticism to his initial reaction, was suspended and later forced out of his role.
But McIlroy has said in the past that American fans are only hostile toward him every four years when the United States hosts the Ryder Cup.
“I love playing around New York. I love playing in this area. It’s got some of the best golf in the world,” McIlroy said Tuesday. “This is a different — like the Ryder Cup is us versus them, very partisan, very — like it’s just a different beast.
“Yeah, was it a rough week for me at times? Absolutely. But it is what it is. If that’s a price to pay to live the life that I’m living, then I’m OK with that.”
He called the atmosphere for his Monday practice round “amazing.”
“Look, New York is New York, and they’re going to make their voices heard, but that’s a good thing. That’s a good atmosphere to play in.”
