Something quite clearly wasn’t right with Rory McIlroy during the final few months of the PGA Tour season.
McIlroy began the 2025 PGA Tour season in exceptional form by winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, The Players Championship and, of course, The Masters all by mid-April.
After his crowning glory at Augusta National, the 36-year-old was widely viewed as the best golfer on the planet, despite the fact that he was actually ranked as the world number two, behind Scottie Scheffler.
However, things went downhill quickly for him thereafter, and his problems began at the PGA Championship in May.
McIlroy’s driver was deemed to be non-conforming ahead of the tournament at Quail Hollow, and things weren’t the same for him on the PGA Tour after that.
The Northern Irishman carried himself in somewhat of a surly manner in every tournament he played in the United States and he made no secret of the fact that he had a big problem with the media.
As the months rolled on, he avoided speaking to the media after six major rounds in a row, before breaking his silence after day three of the US Open at Oakmont.
However, his problems continued. McIlroy irked the PGA Tour by pulling out of the FedEx St Jude Championship, and every time he did play in America, it just seemed like his mind was elsewhere.
There was a brief respite for McIlroy when he returned to Britain for the Scottish Open and The Open Championship.
Then just last week in Ireland, he seemed like a completely different man to the one who looked thoroughly miserable out on the golf course during his time in the United States.
Rory McIlroy just put the PGA Tour in a really awkward position
He has seemingly just made things rather difficult for the PGA Tour.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the BMW Championship at Wentworth this week, the world number two explained how he plans to trim his schedule to suit him from next year onwards.
McIlroy was asked whether he feels like he is now on the back nine of his career.
He said: “Yeah absolutely, 36.“
He was then asked whether his feelings on the matter have changed since he won The Masters.
McIlroy responded by saying: “No. I mean, if you go back to my quotes from — I was asked about this at THE PLAYERS even before I won the players and I said the same thing. I don’t want to be grinding out here at 50 years of age. I’ll turn up and play the majors and have a nice time but you know, whenever I’m done, I’m done, whenever that is. That’s certainly not right now, but I’m certainly closer to that point now than I was in 2007 when I turned pro.
“Again, at this point I want to play golf when I want to play golf. I want to play in the locations that I love to go to, and I want to play the majors and the Ryder Cup. That’s it. I’m not going to be going by minimums or anything else. Like I’ll obviously do my bit to make sure I keep my membership and all that on certain tours, but I’m going to play where I want to play.“
In order to retain membership on the PGA Tour, a player must compete in a minimum of 15 events. Take away the four majors and the Scottish Open, which is a co-sanctioned event, that means McIlroy will have to play in 10 regular PGA Tour events in order to keep his card.
Seve Ballesteros famously fell foul of this PGA Tour rule back in 1985, when he played just nine events.
The PGA Tour cannot afford to suspend McIlroy, given the amount of exposure the Northern Irishman brings them.
So it will be interesting to see what Brian Rolapp and co do if McIlroy fails to play the required 15 PGA Tour events next season.
PGA Tour considering making ‘dangerous’ decision after Rory McIlroy no-show
The PGA Tour were clearly not happy when their biggest star pulled out of the first FedEx Cup Playoff event in Memphis last month.
McIlroy was, of course, in his rights to do that.
However, Peter Malnati – a player director on the PGA Tour policy board – shared at the time how worried he was about players having the option to skip Playoff events as and when they choose.
“Very concerned.
“I think there is stuff in the works and I’ll leave it at that.”
Now, forcing players to compete in Playoff events would set an extremely dangerous precedent.
Golf journalist Ryan Lavner said: “To me that is dangerous territory. The PGA Tour has already tried to have compulsory participation with the elevated events a couple of years ago. That backfired, players were still skipping them and they ended up relinquishing that mandate.“
At the end of the day, PGA Tour players are independent contractors and if the powers that be go down the route of making certain events mandatory to play, they will simply be following LIV Golf’s model without even realizing it.
McIlroy has more leverage than the PGA Tour do, so it will be interesting to see what happens next season if a situation arises whereby the Northern Irishman doesn’t play the required 15 events.
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