Rory McIlroy delivers verdict on LIV Golf's shock switch to 72-hole events

The shock move was announced by Scott O’Neil, LIV Golf’s CEO, on Tuesday night, with the extension of tournaments being welcomed by star players Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau.

The team element is being retained along with a shotgun start, but the decision has caused eyebrows to be raised after the 54-hole format had been lauded as one of its main attractions when the circuit started in 2022.

It is believed the change to 72 holes is mainly being introduced to pave the way for LIV Golf events to be given Official World Golf Ranking points.

Speaking as he prepared for this week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at Yas Links, McIlroy said: “I think it's a peculiar move because I think they could have got ranking points with three rounds. I don't think three rounds versus four rounds is what was holding them back.

“Yeah, it certainly puts them more in line with traditional golf tournaments. It brings them back into not really being a disruptor and sort of falling more in line with what everyone else does. But, if that's what they felt they needed to do to get the ranking points, I guess that's what they had to do.

‘It will be interesting to see how it plays out’

“Yeah, I think what's hard is you've got the LIV guys and say, potentially, they get world ranking points, but, because their strength of fields are going to be so weak because a lot of the guys have fallen already in the rankings because they have not had ranking points for so long, I don't know if the ranking points are really going to benefit them. Yeah, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”

The change is being introduced for the start of LIV Golf’s fourth season, with O’Neil describing it as a “new chapter” for the Saudi-funded breakaway circuit.

“It strengthens our League, challenges our elite field of players, and delivers more of the world-class golf, energy, innovation and access that our global audience wants,” added the man who succeeded Greg Norman as LIV Golf’s chief at the start of this year. 

Norman, who was the driving force behind LIV Golf in tandem with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund, officially ended his involvement with the circuit in September.

Tyrrell Hatton thinks LIV change is ‘good thing’

“I think it’s a good thing,” Tyrrell Hatton, one of three LIV Golf players in the Abu Dhabi field, of the format change. “At the end of my first season, there was a questionnaire and one of the questions was about moving to 72 holes and I think there were only three guys initially that had said about moving there. I guess that’s changed a bit in the last year.”

McIlroy, who is bidding to win the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai for the fourth year in a row and seventh time in total, holds a lead of 441.32 points over Marco Penge heading into the two season-ending Play-Off events in the UAE, with the DP World Tour Championship following on next week.

“I'm excited to have another opportunity to win the Race to Dubai,” admitted the world No 2. “I don't think it's going to be quite as comfortable as it has been the last couple years, but I'm excited for that challenge. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the next couple weeks.”