Rory McIlroy explains resignation from PGA Tour policy board as deadline for Saudi Arabia PIF merger nears

Rory McIlroy stepped down from the PGA Tour policy board, the PGA Tour introduced on Tuesday. The news got here at some point after the 12-man crew met on the Tour’s headquarters in Ponte Vedra, Florida, to speak about the state of negotiations with the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, along with a variety of different suitors, to accommodate industrial operations underneath a brand new for-profit entity dubbed PGA Tour Enterprises. A Dec. 31 deadline for the settlement to be solidified were set, although it reportedly might be driven again over antitrust considerations and participant calls for. 

Playing in Dubai this week on the 2023 DP World Tour Championship, McIlroy defined his resignation following a gap 71 that put him 4 strokes off the 18-hole tempo. The 34-year-old has already wrapped up his 5th Race to Dubai crown due to his regular-season efforts.

“I just think I’ve got a lot going on in my life between my golf game, my family and my growing investment portfolio, my involvement in TGL,” McIlroy stated Thursday. “I just felt like something had to give. I just didn’t feel like I could commit the time and the energy into doing that.”

The Northern Irishman first joined the Player Advisory Council in 2019 and went onto serve as the PAC Chairman in 2021. McIlroy’s roles and obligations off the golfing route greater as the tumultuous courting with LIV Golf started to floor all over his tenure as a participant director the closing two years.

“I don’t mind being busy, but I like being busy doing my own stuff,” McIlroy stated. “Something had to give, and there’s guys that are on that board that are spending a lot more time and a lot more energy on it than I am. It’s in good hands, and I felt like it was the right time to step off.”

The PGA Tour additionally introduced Tuesday the addition of Valero Energy govt Joe Gorder to the board. Gorder will serve as the 5th unbiased director, changing Randall Stephenson, who resigned in early July after bringing up considerations over the settlement with the Saudi PIF.

In addition to Gorder’s announcement got here the news that Patrick Cantlay used to be reappointed as the 5th participant director for a time period from 2024-26. McIlroy lately detailed his courting with Cantlay when describing the skirmish between he and Joe LaCava on the 2023 Ryder Cup. 

Ed Herlihy will proceed as policy board chairman, whilst Mark Flaherty will serve a 2d four-year time period from 2024-27.

“Given the extraordinary time and effort that Rory — and all of his fellow Player Directors — have invested in the Tour during this unprecedented, transformational period in our history, we certainly understand and respect his decision to step down in order to focus on his game and his family,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan wrote in a memo to membership.

“Per the PGA Tour Tournament Regulations, whenever the office of any Player Director becomes vacant due to resignation, the remaining Player Directors elect a successor to serve his unexpired term,” Monahan wrote. “Rory’s term expires at the end of 2024.”

With the addition of Gorder and the departure of McIlroy, the present construction of the PGA Tour policy board is as follows:

• Player Directors: Patrick Cantlay, Tiger Woods, Charley Hoffman, Peter Malnati, Webb Simpson
• Independent Directors:  Ed Herlihy, Jimmy Dunne, Mark Flaherty, Ed Gorder, Mary Meeker, and PGA of America Director John Lindert.