Ernie Els believes the European Tour has passed up an opportunity to retain Rory McIlroy on a permanent basis, despite the riches of its equivalent in the United States, with the South African insisting golf’s world No1 could have been promoted as a modern day Seve Ballesteros.
McIlroy, like the vast majority of successful golfers of his era, has a residence in the United States and is a PGA Tour member while retaining European Tour status. The Northern Irishman has returned to his homeland this week, as the host of the much-anticipated Irish Open. Els has spanned both continents in his career but those from yesteryear, including Ballesteros, had a focus primarily on Europe.
“If I was head of the Tour, I would have made some plan to keep Rory McIlroy in Europe,” Els said. “I would not have let him go to the US. I would have kept him here and make him the Seve.
“I think he could be like a Seve because he’s so exciting to watch. He’s a pretty happy kid, he does good things off the course. He’s got his stuff together. To have a person like that on the European Tour for most of his career is something that I would have absolutely made happen. I don’t care however it would have cost, I would have made it happen.”
One place Els does have considerable pull is Wentworth, the home of the BMW PGA Championship which concluded on Sunday. Els oversaw the redesign of the championship course five years ago but poor greens have overshadowed the event, as was again the case last week.
“It’s a fair comment, I think the greens weren’t up to scratch, especially the first few three days of the tournament,” said the four-time major winner. “We feel it should be the Augusta of Europe, and we intend making it that way. So there’s going to be changes made again and hopefully we’ll get it really rectified where everybody is going to be pleased. I was just disappointed because it’s our flagship event, you want to put on the best possible conditions, and we didn’t quite have that. But we are definitely going to work on that, I promise you.”
