Rory McIlroy Suggests PGA Tour Should Play Less in ‘Diminished’ Golf Ecosystem

Rory McIlroy is cutting down the number of times he will play in 2025—and for the sport’s health, he feels the PGA Tour should do the same. 

“I think 47 or 50 tournaments a year is definitely too many,” the 35-year-old said Tuesday ahead of his season debut at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. 

Ratings and interest in the sport appears to be waning. The first reason could be that the professional game is fractured, and McIlroy said that he “would like to think that something happens pretty soon” regarding the framework agreement between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. However, there have been other initiatives to drive viewership in golf, such as the TGL and YouTube influencers. 

But it has created a saturated golf landscape. 

“I think (the golf ecosystem) already has been diminished,” McIlroy said. “I would say yeah, look, the one thing about TGL’s only going to last two months. You get this sort of big burst of it in January, February and a little bit of March, then it’s done. It’s gone for 10 months basically. I would say that is hopefully somewhat additive to the ecosystem. 

“YouTube is like golf entertainment-adjacent, whatever. Those guys are killing it. They found a niche and it’s really cool and it serves a purpose for a lot of people.”

McIlroy, though, sees the pros and cons of all these forms of golf. 

“Look, I would much rather sit down and watch real golfers play real tournaments and that’s just my opinion,” the Northern Irishman said. “That to me is more entertaining. But I understand that other people want something different and that’s totally fine as well. 

“I think there’s space for all of this. Yeah, I can see when the golf consumer might get a little fatigued of everything that’s sort of available to them. So to scale it back a little bit and maybe have a little more scarcity in some of the stuff that we do, like the NFL, I think mightn’t be a bad thing.”

Even with several stars playing on LIV, McIlroy believes “the majority of probably the best players in the world are still” on the PGA Tour. Therefore, aside from playing less, he’s aware of other suggestions to improve the product, such as playing classic venues, speeding up the pace of play and more engagement with the fans, which Justin Thomas has lobbied for. 

But that likely won’t happen overnight. So if people don’t want to watch what the sport currently has to offer, McIlroy is fine with that. 

“There’s a lot of things about golf that are very different than other sports, but I think that’s what makes it unique,” the four-time major champion said. “I don’t think we should try to dumb down golf to appeal to more people. 

“Golf is golf at the end of the day. It’s been this way for hundreds of years. I really like the way golf is and I think a lot of other people do, too, but I still understand the critiques of how the entertainment product could get better. It’s a multifaceted thing and I think pace of play is one thing. Player accessibility and all that, that’s what we’re talking about, but it takes a while to put that sort of ball into motion. 

“These are all the things that have been getting kicked around. But like first and foremost we’re professional golfers, we want to go out there and shoot the best score possible that we can and try to beat each other. Hopefully, people find that entertaining, and if not, then I don’t know what to tell them.”