Rory McIlroy will not be returning to the Tiger Woods-led Policy Board any time soon. At the pre-tournament press conference of the Wells Fargo Championship, the Northern Irishman revealed that he had withdrawn his application after some people on the board raised concerns about having him back. He labeled things as getting “pretty complicated and pretty messy” and informed that Webb Simpson would remain in his position until the end of 2025.
In a recent episode of the Golf Channel Podcast, golf analyst Rex Hoggard stated that ‘messy’ was the right word to describe McIlroy’s condition. He suspected some sort of rift between the four-time major winner and other player directors on the PGA Tour.
“I think ‘messy’ is the perfect word. Because you look at how this went down and this isn’t necessarily, if you look at just the nuts and bolts of this and the facts, I don’t think there’s anything extraordinary here that would have ruffled feathers, the way it ended up ruffling feathers.”
The golf analyst also claimed that the Tour was protecting another Policy Board player director in a “shady way.”
“In this particular case, it looks like the tour is taking care of another player director. It looks like they’re circumventing the electorate. It looks like they’re doing this in a shady way.”
Following the Players Championship, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, the Policy Board Player Directors, and Saudi PIF Chief Yasir Al-Rumayyan had a meeting in The Bahamas. Rex Hoggard claimed that McIlroy and Yasir have “vastly different” opinions for men’s professional golf in the next 15 or 20 years.
He also noted that Patrick Cantlay, who is one of the Player Directors, has a different vision from McIlroy. And that could be one of the reasons, why the Northern Irishman’s plea to make a return to the Policy Board was rejected.
Also, since Tiger Woods’ opinion matters the most, Hoggard suspected that Woods does not stand on the same side as his TGL partner.
Is there a possible rift between Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy?
Although Woods may be the most successful and biggest superstar in the golf world right now, McIlroy is the most influential figure on the PGA Tour. They did share a great bond outside the golf course, yet it seems that their relationship has turned sour in the past few months.
After McIlroy announced that his plea to return to the Policy Board was rejected due to some “subset of people on the board”, it seems that he is not on good terms with Woods. As per a Golf Digest report, the Northern Irishman keenly wanted the Tour to crack a deal with the Saudi PIF to unify the game, but that does not align with what Woods and his Policy Board colleagues want.
As per The Telegraph report, Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth, Peter Malnati, and Tiger Woods voted against McIlroy taking Webb Simpson‘s spot as Player Director.
Woods and McIlroy are the co-founders and partners of the upcoming indoor golf league called the TGL. If their relationship has indeed worsened, it remains to be seen if that affects their partnership in the upcoming tech-based league. TGL’s launch was postponed to 2025 after an unforeseen accident caused the roof of the venue to collapse. Jon Rahm has already backed out of competing in the new league and with the fallout between Woods and McIlroy, who knows what’s in store for the TGL going ahead.
