Rory McIlroy hopes that the exhaustive negotiations between the PGA Tour and PIF are nearing a conclusion with Jay Monahan and Yasir Al-Rumayyan set to play golf together this week.
PGA Tour Commissioner Monahan and the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund Al Rumayyan, are paired with Billy Horschel and LIV’s Dean Burmester on Thursday at Carnoustie for the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
Johann Rupert, the driving force behind the event has also allowed fourteen LIV Golf players to tee it up at Carnoustie, Kingsbarns and St Andrews including Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka.
McIlroy will also be in the same group as Monahan on Friday and Al Rumayyan on Saturday and he has welcomed the presence of key figures in golf’s civil war with Monahan and Al Rumayyan set to make their first public appearances since they announced the framework agreement in June 2023.
Speaking to BBC NI at St Andrews today, he said: “There’s no better place than the home of golf to try and get everyone together and talking.
“I think it’s a great thing and a good sign that Jay and Yasir are playing together. Obviously, we have quite a big contingent here from LIV playing in the event. What [tournament chairman] Johann Rupert is trying to do is bring the world of golf back together a bit, or force us all together. Whatever, he’s trying to do that.”
“They both want the same thing too. It’s a matter of getting all the different constituents on board.”
Asked how long he expects that to take, McIlroy added: “Maybe it’s going too slow for the people that follow golf. In the business world, deals of this size take time. You are talking about billions of dollars changing hands, different jurisdictions.
“I think we’ll know a lot more by year’s end. We’re in October so hopefully [there’s] three months to get something done.”
BMW PGA champion Horschel will partner Monahan for three days on what will be an uncharacteristically benign day at Carnoustie and the American also expects on course conversation between Monahan and Al Rumayyan to be very light as well.
“One, I don’t think they are going to have any conversation on the golf course about the deal,” said Horschel.
“And two, I do believe that there’s been both goodwill on both sides to try to make a deal happen over the last 18 months, year, since the agreement. It may not move as quickly as people want. There’s a lot of complicated things to figure out and there’s a lot of things behind the scenes that the public just don’t understand; that they can’t comment on.
“But I figured about a month ago when I heard Yassir may be playing in this, there’s a good chance that I may be playing — Jay and I would be paired up one day with them, and I figured knowing Johann, we would be playing with Johann one day.
“It’s a great grouping. I’m excited about it. Obviously got Rory and Gerry in there as well. It’s a great grouping that we have. We’re excited to play.
“And I think, listen, anything that we can show the game of golf, especially the fans, that things are trying to go in the right direction, we are all trying to make this work and figure out how the game of golf is going to work in a couple years, but really how we are going to set ourselves up for the next several decades is a positive.
“So hopefully the fans understand by this pairing, by these groupings that things are moving in the right direction and you’ve just got to give us a little more time.”