Rory McIlroy Is Out On The Recently Proposed Premier Golf League: ‘I’ve Never Been One To Be Told What To Do, I Like Having Freedom Over My Career’

rory mcilroy professional golf league

Getty Image / Ross Parker


While Phil Mickelson may still be mulling over the details of the newly proposed Premier Golf League, Rory McIlroy is officially out, at least for right now.

While talking with the media on Wednesday ahead of the WGC-Mexico Championship, the world’s No. 1 player referenced that having autonomy and freedom over everything in his career is extremely important to him, which is something players would likely lose while playing in the new league.

“The more I’ve thought about it, the more I don’t like it. The one thing as a professional golfer in my position that I value is the fact that I have autonomy and freedom over everything that I do. I pick and choose – this is a perfect example [this week]. Some guys this week made the choice to not come to Mexico. If you go and play this other league, you’re not going to have that choice.

I read a thing the other day where it said if you take the money they can tell you what to do, so if you don’t take the money, they can’t tell you what to do. And I think that’s my thing, I’ve never been one for being told what to do, and I like to have that autonomy and freedom over my career, and I feel like I would give that up by going to play this other league.”

While McIlroy offered strong words against the league, he ended his statement by laying out the fact that he’d basically have no choice but to join the league if the rest of the game’s top players joined.

“For me, I’m out. My position is I’m against it until there may come a day that I can’t be against it. If everyone else goes, I might not have a choice, but at this point, yeah, I don’t like what they’re proposing.”

With that being said, one thing in this world remains true and that is that money talks and there is a lot of money involved when it comes to this new league. Also, who’s to say that the Premier Golf League doesn’t hear these concerns from McIlroy and cater to him because if they land him, plenty of other top names in the game would likely follow.

The PGL would consist of 18 tournaments and instead of 72 holes, would be cut to 54 holes. A total of 48 players would compete in an eight-month season with a total of $240 million in total prize money. There would be no cut in the tournaments, and the most interesting part of this is that there would be both an individual format and team-league format.

Events would have $10 million purses where $2 million would be given to the winner, with an overall champion receiving a $10 million bonus and a $40 million team prize fund.

It will be interesting to see what comes about regarding the newly proposed league not only from a player’s standpoint but from a three-party fight between the new league and both the PGA Tour and European Tour.

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Mark is an associate editor and the resident golf guy here at BroBible. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @ItIsMarkHarris. You can reach him at Mark@BroBible.com.