‘Glad I was wrong’: McIlroy taunts LIV Golf after loss of Saudi billions

The LIV players might have seen the images of Rory McIlroy having to limp off this course barefooted because of a blister on his little toe and thought of karma. After all, he had earlier taunted the breakaway league by declaring: “I’m glad I was wrong” about his long-held assertion that the Saudis would never walk away.

The Northern Irishman was perhaps the most vocal opponent of the upstart circuit when it was founded four years ago, but changed his tack in subsequent years and urged the PGA Tour to reach a deal with the Public Investment Fund and its governor Yasir Al-Rumayaan, who was also the LIV chairman.

McIlroy met with Al-Rumayyan, who is also the Newcastle United chairman, and said he was so passionate about the LIV project – which he called “my baby” – that there was no prospect of the multi-billionaire walking away.

But last week PIF confirmed that it will cease funding LIV at the end of the season, with Al-Rumayyan standing down. LIV is seeking new investors, but industry experts are not giving much hope of survival – and practically none of continuing in its present lavish guise. All of which is clearly music to McIlroy’s ears.

“Yes, love talking about this,” McIlroy replied with a wide smile when told by a journalist at Aronimink on Tuesday in his pre-US PGA press conference that a LIV question was coming. He was then reminded of his previous utterances of the Saudis’ supposedly unwavering commitment.

“Look, I’m glad I was wrong,” McIlroy said. “I can admit when I’m wrong, and that was one that I did get wrong.

“There was always a possibility that was going to happen. Everyone knows with everything that’s happening in the Middle East, that had a lot to do with it. But whenever you have funding tied so much to the geopolitical landscape in the world, that’s a tricky road to navigate.

“Yeah, their priorities shifted, and that puts LIV in a pretty precarious spot…”

And then he delivered the killer line that will hurt LIV players the most. McIlroy knew and they didn’t.

“I feel like a lot of us knew before the players did that this was going to happen,” he added. “Like, I was hearing about this back in March, April time.

“One of my best friends, Ricky [McCormick], caddies for Tom McKibbin, who’s over there, and I would talk to him all the time about what was going on. I was saying to Ricky, even before Mexico [the LIV event that started on April 16], ‘Have you guys heard any of this stuff?’ He was like, ‘No, everything seems okay over here’.

“It just feels like the rug was pulled from under their feet and everyone was sort of blindsided by it. But again, that’s the risk those guys chose to take.”

Like the majority, McIlroy is unconvinced about LIV’s future, despite chief executive Scott O’Neil’s confidence that he can secure a lifeline in the coming weeks and months.

“From what I read they’ve got some sponsorship revenue, but I don’t know how long that those commitments are,” he said. “Look, if they do somehow get a schedule together for next year, it seems like it’s going to look drastically different to what it’s looked like over the last four years.”

McIlroy ‘locked in’ to avoid repeat of post-Masters malaise

This time it will be different for Rory McIlroy as the reigning Masters champion. This time he will not be directionless in a euphoric fog of fulfilment. This time he will not stand resplendent, but feeling oddly forlorn, at the summit and survey the previously visited peaks all around and wonder what he could possibly scale next. This time McIlroy will have purpose.

It is heartening to see him looking and sounding this upbeat and to think back to a year ago. Last week, he was at Quail Hollow and joking with reporters and shrugging off a bout of the “lefts” on Saturday and looking to the US PGA, starting at Aronimink on Thursday, with conviction and desire. He is as likely to sit on any laurels as he is to put his hand in his pocket to help out beleaguered LIV Golf.

At Quail Hollow for last season’s US PGA, he refused to talk to the media for four days in a row. Journalists can be a precious bunch and never like to be ignored – or “snubbed” as the journalese has it – but on this occasion it was justifiable for the pack to shake their heads.

This was not McIlroy, the best and perhaps most honest interviewee in the sport, and despite claiming a month later that he was “p----d off” with the scribes for supposedly sensationalising the fact that the testers had deemed his driver to be non-conforming, that was not it. That was not such a big deal, regardless of whatever the LIV bots on social media were bellowing.

A personal memory is of a throwaway comment after declining interview requests from the media officials, having played his last seven holes of the second round in one under to make the cut. He was congratulated for his gutsy finish, but McIlroy responded thus: “Yeah great. It means I have to play another two rounds.”

McIlroy has won four times at Quail Hollow, more than any other course. It is his own golfing playground, but at that moment it seemed as if he would rather be anywhere else as he struggled to tie for 47th.

It did not make sense. A month after he had become just the sixth player in history to complete the full set of the four majors, McIlroy was in a funk and he could not work out why. Why had he gone directly from the grand slam to the trunk slam and why was this behaviour to continue for another few months?

Now when he talks about this period, it seems so obvious and understandable. But, after becoming the fourth Masters champion to defend the title successfully – joining Jack Nicklaus, Sir Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods – McIlroy has gained perspective.

“It wasn’t complacency,” McIlroy says. “But there’s this thing that you’ve wanted to do your whole life and then you do it. And then it’s like, OK, well, what’s next? I can now see that I went through that lull. I’d achieved the dream, I’d achieved everything I’d ever wanted to achieve and it felt like that was the destination.

“Yet it wasn’t. It was just a stop on my journey, a really important one, no doubt, and one that I’ll probably cherish most. But it was not the end and now I understand that. There are still plenty of things to achieve, still so many goals. So yeah, I had 10 days of celebration after this win, but I chose not to do the New York talk shows and all that. I didn’t want to waste a few months like last year. I locked back in.”

Returning as a ‘complete’ golfer

Aronimink is not wholly a bomber’s paradise and will require strategy and a silky touch around the greens. It will favour the all-rounders, and on his way to a second Green Jacket, McIlroy showed that in his tortuous decade-long grapple to land that fifth major, he has travelled so far down the road towards complete golfer status. McIlroy visited the layout two weeks ago and was delighted by what he found.

“It fits my game pretty well,” he said. “It seems like there’s going to be a lot of drivers, a lot of wedges, especially on the front nine. Back nine starts to get a little tougher, but seems like a course where if you can build your score on the front nine, I can see a lot of guys going like three or four under. But big, slopey greens – they can tuck the pins away – so you’ve got to have your wits about you. I can’t wait to get up there and have another go at a major championship.”

McIroy’s only issue seems to be a blister under the nail of his little toe, a trifling problem compared to last year’s existential crisis.

Later in the day, the 37-year-old ventured out on to this layout for his first official practice round. He had joked to the BBC about pulling off the nail on his little toe to relieve the pressure on the blister that he has been suffering with since the weekend.

However, the self-administered procedure clearly did not work as he was limping through the first three holes. And then on the fourth, the pain became too much and he took off his right shoe and call it a day.

It would a shock if it stopped him competing this week, but his preparations have been affected and he will be relieved that he undertook a reconnaissance mission here two weeks ago.

The Telegraph