Rory McIlroy weighs in on Koepka’s return, PGA Tour changes

Shane Lowry admitted he was stiff and stuck after traveling 17 hours from this weekend’s DP World Tour event in Dubai to Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., the site of Monday night’s TGL game.

So what was the secret of his teammate, Rory McIlroy, who looked silly compared to Ballfrog’s 9-1?

“He doesn’t have his own plane,” McIlroy said.

World No. 2 is back in shape after a few weeks abroad, but things have changed in his absence. While McIlroy is not yet back on the PGA Tour – that is expected to happen in two weeks, when he defends his title at Pebble Beach – someone else is. Brooks Koepka, the first to convert LIV, will join him at Torrey Pines this week after making an agreement with the tour leadership.

While we’ll hear from Koepka himself Tuesday morning — he’s scheduled to speak at the Farmers Insurance Open at noon ET — McIlroy praised the motivation for that Monday night.

“I think it says more about Brooks than anything else,” McIlroy said, referring to the five-time major’s decision to change course. “Obviously he’s a very competitive person and he wants to compete at the highest level. I think he made a decision that he thought competing at the highest level meant coming back to the PGA Tour.”

Koepka’s December break with LIV prompted the Tour to open a new eligibility category called “Returning Members,” leaving the light on and the door open for recent champions like Koepka to return quickly, only to face certain financial penalties. So far Koepka is the only high-profile LIV star to return to the PGA Tour, but the cracks are starting to show.

Patrick Reed admitted he has not officially re-signed with LIV and is looking at his options, Bryson DeChambeau is non-committal about his future in the league and the PGA Tour is adjusting its plans as more professionals are expected to try to make a comeback.

“You’ve seen others say this recently,” McIlroy said. “Patrick Reed said it in Dubai last week. It seems like some of those guys are maybe starting to realize that they’re not getting everything they wanted going over there, and that’s a good thing about the PGA Tour.”

Koepka and McIlroy have more in common than meets the eye. There are a large number (five each, most of the post-Tiger-and-Phil generation) but they were training cycle partners, too, and their secret relatives back home in south Florida. It will be interesting to hear if Koepka has spoken to McIlroy or others about this.

So far, despite admitting to being nervous about his return, Koepka has received plenty of support. Standing next to McIlroy on the podium, Boston Common’s teammate (and reigning US Ryder Cup captain) Keegan Bradley was even more successful with the walk.

“I think it’s an unbelievably good thing that Brooks is coming back,” he said. “When I heard the news, I was overjoyed. Brooks is an incredible competitor and a true asset to the PGA Tour … [he’s] another guy who I think can help the Tour go somewhere else.”

At least publicly, that’s consistent with the Tour-pro response to Koepka’s return, which has been positive or at least neutral. Two members of the Bay GC side – Lowry and Wyndham Clark – gave something close to a shrug.

“I don’t really like it, I have a lot of opinions about it,” Lowry said. “I think it’s good for him to come back. I think it’s going to be good for some tournaments for him to come back … he feels like that’s the right decision for him and his family. Well done to him for being the first to do that.”

“Yeah, I mean, we all love Brooks, at least on the USA team side,” Clark added. “I think it helps the Tour, and anything that helps the Tour is what I think we all want because that ultimately helps us all.”

Back to McIlroy, then. Koepka’s return isn’t the only tweak Rolapp and Co. A revamp of the tour schedule is No. 1 on the priority list, with “shortfalls” leading the way as Rolapp aims to start the season with a big bang rather than this year’s slow approach.

For McIlroy, who prefers to play the DP World Tour in the fall or winter anyway, that might suit him well. And describe yourself as an observer rather than a decision maker here. But he seemed to have mixed feelings about the show.

“Keegan and I have been talking about this before. We’ve all heard rumblings without knowing what’s being said in those rooms and what they’re thinking – obviously I think we’ve all heard it starting maybe after the Super Bowl and going into the end of August before the football season starts again,” McIlroy said. “That seems too easy to me. It seems like a lot of golf in a very short amount of time, depending on how many events they want to play. But that opens up another five months of the year around the world.

“I’m a very proud member of the DP World Tour, and I think that gives them an opportunity to showcase some of their biggest events at the time.
of the year.”

McIlroy’s last PGA Tour start came at the Tour Championship last August; he has played eight DP World Tour events since then. An extended PGA Tour “off-season” may present opportunities for those events to be larger, to increase the world tour’s offerings or for more collaboration between the PGA Tour and its international partners.

Or those in south Florida.

“We tried to do a good first job [TGL] at the beginning of this year so that this season doesn’t get too close to the PGA Tour season,” he said.

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