Tiger Woods forms stumbling block to Rory McIlroy’s return to PGA Tour board

Tiger Woods has emerged as the unexpected obstacle to Rory McIlroy’s return to the PGA Tour Policy Board.

James Corrigan of the Telegraph has reported the 15-time major champion, business partner and all-round close friend of McIlroy voted against him coming back to the group which he decided to leave in November.

The report says Woods and Patrick Cantlay, whom McIlroy has previously admitted he doesn’t get on with, were not in favour of the move. Cantlay is said to be against Saudi Arabian investment in the PGA Tour as negotiations with the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund seemingly continue to tread water.

Woods and Cantlay are two of six player directors on the board. Adam Scott, Jordan Spieth, Peter Malnati and Webb Simpson make the sextet. Simpson was set to vacate his position to allow McIlroy back into the fray, but the former US Open champion will stay put.

“It got pretty complicated and pretty messy and I think with the way it happened, I think it opened up some old wounds and scar tissue from things that have happened before,” McIlroy said at the Wells Fargo Championship, revealing that he wasn’t going to rejoin the policy board.

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“There was a subset of people on the board that were maybe uncomfortable with me coming back on for some reason. I think that the best, I think the best course of action is if there’s some people on there that aren’t comfortable with me coming back on, then I think Webb just stays on and sees out his term, and I think he’s gotten to a place where he’s comfortable with doing that and I just keep doing what I’m doing.

“I put my hand up to help and it was – I wouldn’t say it was rejected, it was a complicated process to get through to put me back on there. So that’s all fine, no hard feelings and we’ll all move on.”

Woods’ pushback against McIlroy is a startling development in a relationship that has only strengthened in recent years. The pair have masterminded TGL Golf, a tech-infused golf league starting in 2025. They often play practice rounds together at events and they played together in the seventh edition of The Match against Spieth and Justin Thomas in 2022.

McIlory left the policy board at the end of 2023 to focus on his game and his family, but his drive to serve the PGA Tour brought him back towards the boardroom where talks are taking place to determine the future of the professional game.

In the Northern Irishman’s absence, a deal between the PGA Tour and Strategic Sports Group (SSG), a US-based sports investment entity led by Fenway Sports Group, was struck and is worth up to $3 billion in equity.

The player directors also met with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan in the Bahamas after The Players Championship where Woods allegedly played golf with the man who oversees the funding of the LIV Golf League.

McIlroy is in favour of peace and a compromise between the PGA Tour and the PIF, which bankrolls LIV Golf, but Woods has previously stated that with the tour’s partnership with SSG, Saudi investment is no longer a financial priority.

The tour and PIF announced a framework agreement in June last year but a cemented deal hasn’t been signed and might not be until 2026. The tour’s coalition with SSG somewhat leapfrogged its talks with the Saudi sovereign wealth fund which runs the start-up, rival league that has nabbed several PGA Tour stars since its first tournament in June 2022.

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