PGA Tour golfer Rory McIlroy, “among the most outspoken opponents of his sport’s swelling ties to Saudi Arabia,” has resigned from the PGA Tour’s policy board. He “gave no hint that an exit was in the offing,” and his resignation comes after the 12-member board finished a meeting at the tour’s headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. on Monday. McIlroy is the second person to resign from the tour’s board since the summer — the other being Randall Stephenson, whose departure in July “turned heads on Wall Street and in golf’s inner sanctums.” But the decision by McIlroy is “a particularly public blow to the tour and its board” (N.Y. TIMES, 11/14).
McIlroy’s resignation is “a stunning blow to the status quo.” He began his term in 2022 “in the midst of an unprecedented threat from LIV Golf” and he had been the Tour’s “most outspoken supporter.” But at this week’s DP World Tour finale, he “conceded his duties as a player director were more than he bargained for.” The remaining player directors on the policy board — Tiger Woods, Webb Simpson, Charley Hoffman, Patrick Cantlay and Peter Malnati — “will select a replacement for McIlroy to serve out the remainder of his term through 2024” (GOLFCHANNEL.com, 11/14).
McIlroy served as “the de facto face of the PGA Tour in its battle with LIV Golf,” and he admitted that “putting himself out there in the game’s civil war took an emotional and physical toll.” McIlroy said he was “still reckoning with” that toll this year (GOLF DIGEST, 11/14).
Fellow PGA Tour player Jon Rahm said today that “there was no chance of him replacing McIlroy” as a director. Rahm: “You won’t see me there. I don’t know how many meetings they have but they are six or seven hours long. I’m not here for that. Rory has been put in a situation where a lot has been expected of him” (London TIMES, 11/15).
McIlroy’s resignation comes as the PGA Tour Policy Board had just met on Mondaygetty images
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