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Rory McIlroy’s recent comments about one of his soon-to-be bosses may come as somewhat of a surprise.
A staunch critic of LIV Golf and PGA Tour loyalist who refused to join the rival Saudi-backed upstart, McIlroy had recently criticized the stunning merger between the two golf entities along with the European DP World Tour.
But when asked about Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the director of the Saudi Public Investment Fund that owned LIV Golf and who will become chairman of the board of the new yet-to-be-named company, McIlroy expressed a different sentiment.
“He’s a very impressive man,” McIlroy told reporters when asked at the RBC Canadian Open on Friday. “Harvard Business School, runs 700 or 800 billions worth of dollars, and invested in a ton of different companies. He’s a very smart, impressive man.”
Just a few days prior, McIlroy had said “it’s hard for me not to feel like a sacrificial lamb” after vehemently defending the PGA Tour only for the league to reverse course and merge with LIV Golf to end golf’s civil war.
McIlroy, the world’s third-ranked player, at various points claimed LIV Golf “legitimizes” Saudi Arabia’s place in the world even as the country has a sordid human rights history and railed against the players who opted to join the rival tour as “duplicitous.”
Beyond serving as a de-facto spokesperson for the PGA Tour, McIlroy, reportedly turned down a lucrative nine-figure offer from LIV Golf similar to what many of his counterparts accepted.
While Al-Rumayyan will serve as the new chairman of the board of the new company, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan is set to take on the role of CEO.
“I know Yasir,” McIlroy said. “So I played a pro-am with Yasir in Dubai a few years ago. And then I’ve seen him, I was with him at a Formula 1 race randomly a couple years ago in Austin. I saw him in Dubai at the end of last year… He sort of, he runs in the same circles as a lot of people that I know.”
The Public Investment Fund is headed by Saudi Arabai’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — who was accused of ordering the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi — and is considered one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds with over $600 billion in assets.
PIF has spent exorbitantly in other sports as well, including the purchase of Newcastle United in the English Premier League.
“I would say [Al-Rumayyan] is an avid golfer,” McIlroy said. “I think he really does like the game of golf. He likes playing it.”
