Rory McIlroy is not playing this week and that reality will likely get more attention for a few days than those who are playing at Jack Nicklaus’s Memorial Tournament, the 50th playing of the event he founded at a course he designed.
The fact that McIlroy is the reigning Masters champion and also skipping a third signature event—a concept he was squarely behind getting initiated—will also be the subject of conversation as well.
It’s all fair as game—as long as context is included.
And there’s plenty to unpack there.
McIlroy, 36, a three-time winner this year including the Masters, is skipping Nicklaus’s annual event at Muirfield Village for the first time since 2017. He’s also missing one of the PGA Tour’s marquee events, one of eight $20 million tournaments that McIlroy helped conceive in 2022 as a response to the LIV Golf threat.
He’s now skipping his third one after not playing the season-opening Sentry (where Tommy Fleetwood and Shane Lowry also skipped) and also passing on the RBC Heritage (where Hideki Matsuyama did not play) the week after the Masters. Unlike 2023 when the concept first started, there is no penalty for skipping signature events. Still, the idea is to get as much participation as possible. Getting the best of the best, after all, is the point.
And yet, all of this, quite likely, was planned. And vetted behind the scenes. And, perhaps, even championed by the PGA Tour brass.
First, there is McIlroy’s schedule. He made it clear early on he was cutting back, saying at last year’s Tour Championship that his 27-event itinerary in 2024 was too many.
“I’m going to try to cut it back to like 18 or 20 a year going forward,” he said, then later telling the Telegraph at the Abu Dhabi event that he was likely to drop the Cognizant Classic, the Valero Texas Open, the RBC Heritage and even a FedEx Cup playoff event this year.
He did pass on the Cognizant and Texas Open, but added the Houston Open. And he skipped the Heritage. Now he’s skipping another tournament he played last year, the Memorial, but expected to add the Travelers Championship the week after the U.S. Open at Oakmont. Next week’s RBC Canadian Open—which he has won twice—has long been on his schedule, and McIlroy wasn’t going to play four straight weeks.
So is this really a surprise?
If he plays Memorial, he likely skips another signature event in the Travelers.
For the Tour, it’s actually a good thing. While certainly it would love to have McIlroy at Muirfield Village this week, the event will stand on its own with Nicklaus’s stature, an iconic course and Scottie Scheffler as defending champion.
Then the Tour gets McIlroy next week at a non-signature event. It also had him at the Houston Open and again at the Zurich Classic. That was a big boost to those events.
Is it great that McIlroy is skipping three signature events? Certainly not. Especially when you consider that the entire purpose of these tournaments was to bring the best players on the PGA Tour together more often and reward them with a big purse.
McIlroy was fully on board with that concept almost three years ago when he was part of the famous Delaware meeting in which players hashed out a plan they took to commissioner Jay Monahan and implemented almost overnight.
Last year, McIlroy skipped two signature events. Scheffler has missed the Truist (formerly Wells Fargo) each of the past two years so he could play his hometown Texas events in Dallas and Forth Worth.
If anything, all of this might possibly point out an unintended consequence of the system. Perhaps there are too many Signature events?
Good luck going back on $20 million purses, but it’s not a great thing to have three of them—along with two major championships—in a seven-week period starting with the Truist through the Travelers Championship.
If you believe the signature events are must-play tournaments, then you’re also saying these guys have to play five times in seven weeks. And what about the tournaments that aren’t signature events?
Scheffler did the Byron Nelson and Colonial events a huge solid by playing them. Same for McIlroy next week at the Canadian Open.
As for the schedule, making changes is not easy. But the Tour made already popular events such as Heritage, Truist (in Charlotte) and the Travelers into signature events when those tournaments already attracted strong fields. None of them would be gravely hurt if they returned to regular-event status.
The legacy events—Tiger Woods’s Genesis Invitational, the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Memorial—are obvious choices for the designation. So is the season-opening Sentry to kick off the year. Pebble Beach got a field boost by going to a signature event, even if it had to greatly change its makeup from a three-day pro-am to two days.
That’s five signature events. Take out two of the remaining three and go with six instead of eight and is this issue alleviated? Maybe. It’s two less $20 million purses, which might take some pressure off title sponsors who are being squeezed as it is.
As for McIlroy’s schedule, take a look at what he is doing in attempting to also play his home tour, the DP World Tour, as well as the PGA Tour.
He played the Dubai event in the Middle East to start the year, thus his reason for skipping Hawaii.
He skipped the RBC Heritage but is playing the RBC Canadian, a huge win for a title sponsor that has yet to renew either event for next year.
So far, McIlroy has played nine PGA Tour events, with the Canadian, U.S. Open, Travelers (likely), Scottish Open, British Open and two playoff events to come. That would be 16 tournaments.
In Europe, he’s expected to play the Irish Open, the Dunhill Links Championship and the BMW PGA Championship, the DP World Tour’s flagship event. There’s the Ryder Cup (at Bethpage Black in the U.S.), plus he’s committed to a new event in India and likely the season-ending Dubai tournament. McIlroy has also committed to the Australian Open in December.
That adds up to 24 events, which is more than he preferred but less than last year.
Also, outside of the majors, it’s four national Opens (Canadian, Scottish, Irish, Australian) as well as a tournament in India. For all the chatter about lack of travel outside of the U.S., McIlroy is doing his part to get around the world. Sure, he’s getting paid for it. But don’t call out a lack of travel and then criticize how it’s coming about.
So, sure, point out Rory for skipping Jack’s event this week. It’s not ideal, and certainly would be great if he were playing one of the best events of the year. But the decision deserves some perspective, too.
British Open spots close via OWGR
This weekend was the last opportunity to qualify for the British Open at Royal Portrush via the Official World Golf Ranking. The top 50 in the OWGR as of Monday who were not otherwise exempt are now in the field with the R&A announcing 18 players qualifying in this manner. Among them are past major winners Jason Day and Lucas Glover.
Min Woo Lee, Harris English, Maverick McNealy are players in the top 20 OWGR who made the field and Ben Griffin, who won the Charles Schwab Challenge, also qualified via the top 50.
The full list of exemptions for the Open can be found here.
And there are several more opportunities to earn a way into the field.
The first five players on the FedEx Cup list among the top 20 not otherwise eligible through the Rocket Classic; the first five players on the Race to Dubai list for the DPWT Tour among the top 20 not otherwise exempt through the BMW International Open; the first player among the top five not otherwise exempt on LIV Golf’s season points list through its Dallas event are pathways in.
There are also spots available via the remaining Open Qualifying Series events, which includes one spot from this week’s Memorial Tournament as well as the Japan Mizuno Open, the Canadian Open, the Italian Open, the Scottish Open.
The Open will conduct final qualifying at four U.K. venues in July with a minimum of 16 spots to be determined.
Major players
The next two weeks will see nearly everyone of note who will be playing in the U.S. Open at Oakmont competing.
This week’s Memorial Tournament has a vast majority of the top 50 players in the OWGR including defending champion Scottie Scheffler. Rory McIlroy, who is ranked No. 2, will play next week at the Canadian Open. The defending U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau will compete in a LIV Golf event next week outside of Washington, D.C., along with other U.S. Open participants such as Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm, Cam Smith, Tyrrell Hatton, Joaquin Niemann and Dustin Johnson, who won the last U.S. Open played at Oakmont in 2016. Phil Mickelson will also be in what could be his final U.S. Open. This will be the last year of his exemption for winning the 2021 PGA Championship.
Through two majors, Scheffler and DeChambeau are the only players to finish top 10 in both. Jon Rahm, Corey Conners and Harris English are the only players to join them as having finished top 20 in both majors.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Rory McIlroy Is Missing Another Signature Event, but Any Criticism Needs Context.
