Musical board chairs

After bowing out, McIlroy reportedly wants back on Policy Board with so much at stake

Is Rory McIlroy ready to embrace the Policy Board headaches again? (Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

Rory McIlroy wanted off and now he wants back in the room where it happens. Perhaps the once primary LIV Golf basher wants to bash some heads into shape on the PGA Tour Policy Board.

The four-time major winner. who resigned his position as a player-director last November ostensibly to concentrate more on his game, now is apparently ready to get back on the board as Webb Simpson plans to resign and has put forth McIlroy as his replacement.

The Guardian newspaper reported on Monday that this was the plan, with approval slated for this week via a board call.

Perhaps this is what the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Enterprises needs to accelerate reunification negotiations. Nothing seems to be happening with the proposed “framework agreement” with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, and to think that the PGA Tour — even with its hefty investment from Strategic Sports Group of up to $3 billion — will just blissfully move forward without completing an arrangement with PIF is incredibly naïve and potentially risky.

LIV Golf has signaled it is not going anywhere, announcing last week several new high-level executive hires. And if the sides don’t come together with some kind of agreement, then the PGA Tour faces the possibility of more defections such as the one that shook the golf world last December when Jon Rahm made the move to LIV. To be sure, the PIF also needs the credibility that the PGA Tour brings, helping to create better TV windows and revenue, among other impediments to the growth of its league.

But it is interesting how all of this has unfolded. Is it possible that the PGA Tour Policy Board and the newly formed PGA Tour Enterprises Board have installed a revolving door?

Jordan Spieth leaves and comes back. Patrick Cantlay is added and then Tiger Woods gets a spot created for him — with no term — making him the only member without a limit to how long he can serve. Now McIlroy flip flops after prominently leaving in the fall and now reportedly coming back less than six months later.

What exactly is the reason for McIlroy’s reported about face?

If some of the speculation is true, Cantlay, Spieth and Woods are not interested in letting the LIV guys back competing on the PGA Tour. And if they do let them back, perhaps the price would even be too high for Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF, to pay. And as he’s shown, Yasir is willing to pay a lot.

Judging from his softened stance regarding the breakaway league and his desire to bring the best players back together, McIlroy would likely be a voice of reason and take the line that the tours need to coalesce to make the game stronger and get the fans interested again. McIlroy has met Al-Rumayyan, and while he said again last week that he has no plans to ever join LIV Golf, he has made it clear that he believes a deal is necessary.

“Fundamentally he wants to do the right thing,’’ McIlroy said of Al-Rumayyan last month at the Players Championship. “I think I’ve said this before, I have spent time with Yasir and his … the people that have represented him in LIV I think have done him a disservice … so (LIV commissioner Greg) Norman and those guys.

“I see the two entities, I actually think there’s a really big disconnect between PIF and LIV. I think you got PIF over here and LIV are sort of over here doing their own thing. So the closer that we can get to Yasir, PIF and hopefully finalize that investment, I think that will be a really good thing.’’

McIlroy is more willing than most to reach back across the LIV aisle. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

That was some strong stuff from McIlroy. He’s no fan of LIV Golf but he’s not against the PIF investing in the PGA tour — something he’s said since the shocking June 6 agreement was announced. As this has played out, he’s quite possibly concerned a deal is getting derailed with him on the sidelines.

Most players on the LIV Golf side are just fine with the current arrangement — as are many PGA Tour supporters — and don’t see the need for Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau or Rahm to return anytime soon.

McIlroy might be a lone voice among the player-directors if he gets back into the room where it happens, but he might be the voice that’s needed to jolt both sides off the current course of inaction.

Remember, McIlroy has been putting forth an idea for how he believes it could all work for PGA Tour Enterprises.

“I would think it would be one tour.,’’ McIlroy said earlier this year at the Genesis Invitational. “I think you would just create a tour for the top 80 players in the world.’’

It would be separate and supplemental to the existing PGA Tour, DP World Tour, LIV Golf and other worldwide tours, McIlroy said.

“Then I think everything sort of feeds up in that one,’’ he said. “The way I look at it, it would be like Champions League in European football. It sort of sits above the rest of the leagues and then all those leagues sort of feed up into that and the best of the best play against each other in the Champions League is how I would think about it.’’

How  would that impact the PGA Tour? How would it impact LIV Golf? Does either side want that?

Good luck, Rory, making it happen.

It’s all about the fans? Hmm

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan made it very clear in his state of the union address before the Players Championship that the fans are critical to the PGA Tour success.

Arthur Blank, an SSG investor and the owner of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and MLS’ Atlanta United, talked about the fans and their importance last week at the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where he present for a board meeting of the newly created PGA Tour Enterprises.

“I think that the, the dynamics and mix of players that you see on the PGA Tour today is much more diverse than we’ve ever seen before,” Blank told Athlon Sports while referencing the fact that while TV ratings are down domestically, they are up internationally. “And I think that’s attracting more ratings and more TV viewership on a worldwide basis. And I think eventually, the opportunity to host significant tournaments on a worldwide basis will be there, but we’ll see. It’s just my opinion.

“I think clearly coming out of the Masters last week, the sentiment amongst the players — and I would say amongst the fans, which is as important as the players — is that they want to see the best players play together,” Blank added.

All of it makes you wonder how important the really fans are when, last Sunday, the forecast was for 70 percent chance of late afternoon rain and the PGA Tour decided to stick to its schedule and play twosomes off of the first tee instead of pushing an earlier two-tee start with threesomes to try to beat the weather.

The split start would have seen a finish on Sunday afternoon before the rain and lighting started. Instead, the rain turned into a dangerous situation with electricity in the air and suspension of play.  After a two-hour, 30-minute delay, play resumed at 7 p.m. with no chance to complete the round. That meant world No. 1 and newly crowned Masters champion Scottie Scheffler had to tidy up the last three holes of his fourth win in five starts at 8 a.m. on Monday in front of a smattering of fans and no network TV audience.

There are so many things wrong with this picture, but the biggest one is the lack of concern for the fans. Of course, CBS and Golf Channel don’t want to have a finish that they have to show on tape delay on Sunday. But nobody associated with the tournament from the PGA Tour to the local organizers wants to see an event spill into Monday.

But that’s what happened when play could not be completed. Teeing off earlier and running the event on delay had to be better than showing at least 90 minutes of pre-recorded golf which viewers had already seen if they were watching the start of the broadcast. Fans could have escaped with not dealing with the heavy rain and Scheffler could have gotten home to his pregnant wife sooner.

The PGA Tour said the forecast was not for any thunderstorms, but the front stalled to the north, and everything changed — as it does this time of year in the South. The tour rolled the dice with its players and fans for the hope it would all work out for TV.

It didn’t — and in the end, that was a big problem.

By the way, why start back up for 45 minutes on Sunday evening when it was clear you would not finish? Instead, the players could have come back to finish in the sunshine the next morning.

Remember, it’s all about the fans — until it’s not.