Rory McIlroy, a 35-year-old Northern Irish golfer who has previously been a vocal critic of the breakaway LIV Golf circuit, is a co-founder of the Tomorrow’s Golf League (TGL), which is in its first season.
With YouTube golf content also on the rise, the world number three acknowledged that the PGA Tour’s more traditional offering has been “diminished” by the volume of competition from elsewhere and suggested taking a cue from American football’s NFL, which has a regular season consisting of 17 games.
“I can see when the golf consumer might get a little fatigued of everything that’s sort of available to them,” McIlroy stated.
Therefore, I believe it might not be a bad idea to scale it back a little bit and perhaps have a little more scarcity in some of the things that we do, like the NFL. “I think 47 or 50 tournaments a year is definitely too many.”
At the Pebble Beach Pro-Am this week, McIlroy will make his debut appearance on the PGA Tour of 2025. He cautioned against making too many alterations to mimic what is available elsewhere. “I don’t think we should try to dumb down golf to appeal to more people,” he stated. “In the end, golf is just golf.
This is how things have been for hundreds of years. Although I agree with many others that golf is a great sport, I can yet appreciate the criticism that the entertainment value may be improved. “Hopefully people find that entertaining, and if not, then I don’t know what to tell them.”
This week’s Pebble Beach trademark event will only have 80 players, yet such a large field would prevent other players from playing. “There’s a lot of different answers, but not every answer is going to make everyone happy,” he stated. “Smaller fields, perhaps. Smaller fields might facilitate play, but they also deprive players of opportunities to play.
Additionally, I believe that in order to accommodate daylight and other factors, the tee times must be slightly closer together when we play during this time of year. “Hopefully, if you could spread out the tee times a bit more, that would make things flow a little bit better.”