Rory McIlroy has resigned from the PGA Tour's policy board five months after complaining of feeling "like a sacrificial lamb" in the tour's quest to obtain funding from Saudi Arabia. The four-time major winner announced his resignation in a Tuesday letter to the board shortly after an appearance ahead of the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, where he was asked whether he'd enjoyed his two years as a player-director. "Not particularly, no," he responded, per the Canadian Press. "Not what I signed for whenever I went on the board. But yeah, the game of professional golf has been in flux for the last two years." Just five months ago, McIlroy said he was blindsided as the tour secretly agreed to merge with the golf interests of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, including the rival LIV Golf league.
Only two members of the board sat in on the negotiations. McIlroy wasn't one of them. He'd been one of the most vocal critics of LIV Golf and was viewed as the PGA's "leading public champion," per the New York Times. "It's hard for me to not sit up here and feel somewhat like a sacrificial lamb and feeling like I've put myself out there and this is what happens," McIlroy said in June following news of the merger. The golfer, whose term was to extend until the end of next year, is the second person to resign from the tour's board since the decision on the merger. Former AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, who'd sat on the board for more than a decade, resigned in July, citing "serious concerns with how this framework agreement came to fruition without board oversight."
McIlroy, 34, currently ranked No. 2 in the world, "spoke positively this week of the direction a now unified professional game could be going," per Golf Digest. "If you were in the middle of it, you would see that there's a path forward," he said. He added details would be revealed "when there's news to tell." In a joint statement, tour commissioner Jay Monahan and board chairman Edward D. Herlihy said they respected McIlroy's "decision to step down in order to focus on his game and his family." They said he'd invested "extraordinary time and effort" in the tour "during this unprecedented, transformational period in our history" and was "instrumental in helping shape the success of the tour." The five remaining player-directors on the 12-member board will elect his successor. (More Rory McIlroy stories.)
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