It's safe to say Rory McIlroy isn't enthralled by the PGA TOUR's potential new two-track model.
Ahead of the Memorial Tournament earlier in June, PGA TOUR CEO Brian Rolapp said there's momentum to implement two tracks of tournaments, with promotion and relegation beginning in 2028.
The idea is to have the best players on TOUR face one another more often, but McIlroy fears the new model would do more harm than good.
"I just think there's going to be certain events that might lose their stature if a sponsor doesn't pony up $30 million. So that's the tough thing," McIlroy told reporters Tuesday, per Golf.com.
McIlroy specifically noted the Canadian Open as an event that might suffer from the change. He's won the tournament twice and has previously expressed pride in winning a country's national open.
"An event like last week, the Canadian Open, potentially going to one of these Track Twos - Track Two's a glorified Korn Ferry (Tour) event," McIlroy said. "That's what Track Two is going to be. I don't think the Canadian Open should be one of those."
McIlroy also argued that the PGA TOUR's structure was fine before LIV Golf's arrival sparked change.
"LIV created this false economy where we had to up prize funds and had to cut fields and try to support the top players and all that stuff," McIlroy said. "Which I think needed to happen because that was the only way to retain talent at the time, but now that LIV looks like it's less of a threat, I think, as I said, the old ways of the PGA TOUR weren't actually that bad."
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund announced in April that it would stop financing LIV Golf at the end of the season. CEO Scott O'Neil admitted earlier in June that the clock is ticking to secure new funding.
