LIV Golf: Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka critical of Saudi-funded series
Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy are getting a bit testy when discuss turns to the Saudi-funded LIV Golf sequence.
Requested on Tuesday throughout U.S. Open media availability if there was a value that will make him take into account leaving the PGA Tour, two-time U.S. Open champion Koepka says he hasn’t given it a lot thought.
After which he repeated his greatest concern: “I’m making an attempt to give attention to the U.S. Open, man. I legitimately don’t get it. I’m uninterested in the conversations. I’m uninterested in all these items.”
Koepka’s youthful brother, Chase, was amongst these taking part in the LIV occasion final week within the U.Okay. Brooks Koepka was among the many first gamers to denounce the thought of a small discipline taking part in no-cut occasions with a group format. That was in March 2020 when it was a unique group making an attempt to create a brand new league.
Koepka is the final participant to win the U.S. Open again to again, in 2017 and 2018. He was runner-up to Gary Woodland at Pebble Seaside in 2019. He missed 2020 with an damage and tied for fourth final yr at Torrey Pines.
Which means solely 4 gamers beat him within the final 4 U.S. Opens. His response? “I want it was much less,” he mentioned.
In the meantime, McIlroy says he understands why the 40-50-something crowd, led by Phil Mickelson, may be prepared to take the cash from the LIV Tour. However he doesn’t perceive why different gamers are going.
“I believe they’d say to you themselves that their greatest days are behind them,” the 33-year-old McIlroy mentioned Tuesday of the gamers of their 40s and 50s who’ve signed on with the rival golf sequence.
However, he mentioned, youthful gamers nonetheless have a lot to play for and would possibly nonetheless have their greatest days forward of them.
“In order that’s the place it feels such as you’re taking the simple method out,” McIlroy mentioned.
The four-time main winner has been among the many most forceful advocates for the PGA Tour, and he reiterated his assist for the tour — whereas taking just a few digs at LIV frontman Greg Norman — in his victory information convention Sunday on the Canadian Open.
Most of his Q&A with reporters Tuesday was targeted on the newly forming schism in golf and his relationship with gamers who’ve left. Mickelson acquired a reported $200 million to go and Dustin Johnson acquired a reported $150 million.
Requested if he had misplaced respect for Mickleson, McIlroy mentioned “as a golfer, I’ve the utmost respect for Phil.”
“I’ve been upset with how he has [gone] about what he has completed,” McIlroy mentioned. “However I believe he has come again and proven some regret about how he has dealt with some issues so I believe he has discovered from that.”
Reporting by Related Press
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