‘Nobody wants that little b**** on their team’: LIV Golf exec takes brutal swipe at Rory McIlroy as he claims ‘every big name’ on PGA Tour will get an offer to play in new-look team format – apart from him
- It doesn’t seem Rory McIlroy will be invited onto a LIV Golf team anytime soon
- Rumors from the rebel tour say their format will remain in the merged circuit
- DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news
An unnamed LIV Golf executive took a brutal swipe at Rory McIlroy when discussing the future of the breakaway competition amid its merger with the PGA Tour.
Following the news that LIV and the PGA would combine its commercial enterprises, speculation has abounded regarding the future of LIV – or what the intentions behind the rebel circuit were in the first place.
There’s a possibility that the LIV format will remain in place – according to golf writer Alan Shipnuck – with a few events being played on weeks that there isn’t a traditional PGA event while others will be co-sanctioned within the unified schedule.
It provides the opportunity for those PGA members who were not a part of LIV to join the team format and take part… well, not everyone as one LIV exec explains.
‘Now we can finally get Hideki [Matsuyama] and Jon Rahm. I would say every big name on the PGA Tour will get an offer. Except Rory. Nobody wants that little b**** on their team,’ the executive told Shipnuck.
An unnamed LIV Golf exec called Rory McIlroy a ‘little b****’ when referencing golfers joining
It’s been a week long victory lap for LIV Golf and its leaeder, the Saudi PIF’s Yasir Al-Rumayyan
In the aftermath of the merger, McIlroy remained a steadfast hater of the Saudi-backed league, saying on Wednesday, ‘I hope it goes away, and I would fully expect that it does.’
McIlroy continued saying, ‘All I’ve tried to do is protect what the PGA Tour is and what the PGA Tour stands for.
‘Going forward there may be a team element, and you’re going to see, maybe me, maybe whoever else play in some sort of team golf. But I don’t think it will look anything like LIV has looked, and I think that’s a good thing.’
The Irishman also said that his efforts to protect the PGA – only for it to capitulate to the Saudis – made him feel like a ‘sacrificial lamb’.
As for the future of the 54-hole, shotgun-start, team-format event, it may not go away as easily as McIlroy thinks.
Per Shipnuck, since the merger announcement the phone of LIV’s global head of partnerships, Monica Fee, has been ‘ringing off the hook’.
Companies such as Marriott, Anheuser-Busch, and ESPN have been making calls after LIV got the PGA Tour’s proverbial stamp of approval through the merger.
Even Fox is interested – despite Rupert Murdoch’s company turning down the offer to broadcast the rebel tour’s events live when it was proposed before the start of this season.
LIV might not die off with this merger – as commercial interest from companies have flooded in
Al-Rummayyan is now clearly the most powerful man in golf as three tours are set to merge
There’s also the chance for the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) to make its money back by selling the 12 LIV teams – of which they own a 75 percent stake in each. Internal valuations put these franchises at $500million.
It’s all part of the plan for the most powerful man in golf – Yasir Al-Rummayyan, an avid fan whose ambitions in the sport go beyond improving his handicap.
The terms of the merger may still need to be hammered out, but what is known is that Al-Rummayyan, the governor of the PIF, will be in charge of the combined group made up of the PGA, the DP World Tour, and LIV – or whatever’s left of it.
LIV’s current season is still set to run its course and next week, the two tours will clash once again at the US Open in Los Angeles.
