SOUTHAMPTON, New York — As Rory McIlroy prepares for the U.S. Open, he also opined on coming changes to the PGA Tour schedule, saying that second-tier tournaments will be “glorified Korn Ferry” events, referring to the largely-developmental Korn Ferry Tour.
PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp, who took the role last June, announced in March a plan to implement a two-tiered system of tournaments with the most significant changes expected starting in the 2028 season.
In what Rolapp called a work in progress, the plan was to have elevated events on the top track with an evaluation of a promotion-relegation system between the two tracks. The yearly Tour schedule has been about 40 tournaments total.
“The competitive meritocracy that makes this sport great and unique — we’ve gotten away from, and we’re getting back to (it),” Rolapp said two weeks ago.
Rolapp has said that “meaningful progress” on the new structure was expected by the summer. He plans to hold a press conference following a board meeting next Monday.
McIlroy was asked Tuesday what concerns he has about the changes and the effects they might have on players.
McIlroy started his answer by saying he didn’t really know, then pointed to last week’s RBC Canadian Open possibly becoming a track-two event.
“Track two is a glorified Korn Ferry event, like that’s what track two is going to be,” said McIlroy, who won the Canadian Open in 2019 and 2022 and did not play it this year for the first time since 2018. “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. But, look, I’m not in those rooms. I don’t know.”
McIlroy was one of, if not the loudest voice in support of the Tour when LIV Golf launched in 2021 and started signing away some top players.
He was on the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Council for three years, then served on the Tour’s policy board for two years before resigning in November 2023, saying at the time that he could no longer commit the time and energy into the role.
“It’s funny, 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,” he said Tuesday. “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.”
