LIV row has not distracted McIlroy — it has fuelled him

Saudi-funded venture has split sport but given its most committed critic a new lease of life.

Rory McIlroy plays a bunker shot on his way to winning the Hero Dubai Desert

It would be the ultimate irony if by the end of golf’s most divisive period, we find that the LIV breakaway has not so much grown the game - more improved Rory McIlroy’s. The stress, focus, and ability to make birdies when it mattered at the Dubai Desert Classic offered further proof that it has all come together for the world No 1 while, in his own words, golf has been ripped apart. Funny old game.

McIlroy gives it to you straight, and so he admitted the presence of LIV Golf’s Patrick Reed, whom he held off by a single shot, made victory all the sweeter. Why else would he call clinching a DP World title that he has already won twice one of the most “mentally draining” of his career? This is the LIV effect. “A burden I don’t need,” he said last summer, when asked about his role as de facto leader of the anti-LIV battalion. Perversely, it could be that it helps.

Before striking a ball in Dubai, McIlroy, 33, said he was physically and psychologically depleted after a year in which he had taken on LIV Golf. There have also been the wars of words - calling Phil Mickelson “naive, selfish, egotistical and ignorant” and urging Greg Norman, the LIV commissioner, to “exit stage left”. In return, McIlroy has been dubbed “brainwashed”. He is asked about something LIV-related at almost every press conference, has held player summits, and generally done things that should have been hugely distracting.

Yet instead, it seems to have had a galvanising effect on the Northern Irishman. Since LIV made its debut in June, McIlroy has won four times and had another six top-five finishes. Of course, he was playing well before that and there have been practical reasons for his consistency. Brad Faxon’s input helped him to rise to sixth in the PGA Tour putting stats between 10 and 15 feet in 2021-22, compared with 122nd two years earlier.

In Dubai, he was not at his best but there was none of the old shrug and sulk when his driving went awry. “To be able to win when you don’t have your best, that’s the sort of holy grail of what we are trying to do,” he said.

That line was straight out of the Bob Rotella book of nuggets. McIlroy’s psychologist said last year that the distraction might end up being a blessing in disguise for him. “In some ways the LIV thing has been good for Rory because one of the challenges for the pro golfer is to get their mind off their game,” he said.

Mickelson was happy to stir this pot before this week’s LIV-heavy Saudi International. “What transpired early in the week with Patrick and Rory added to the excitement level,” he said.

Let’s not skirt the facts. If you had taken Reed and the LIV Golf contingent out of the Dubai field, the proceedings would have had a smidgen of the drama. Lines have been drawn in the bunkers, insults and lawsuits have been traded and a genteel game has become tribal.

Not long ago, it would have been madness to think that golf could throw up a scenario where a player seeking a billion dollars in defamation damages could be snubbed over a subpoena delivered to the world No 1’s house on Christmas Eve. Or that a Ryder Cup captain would play a round with the man stripped of that job for joining the Saudi breakaway. It now seems almost routine.

McIlroy sees himself as a leader now, and it is worth remembering why he is so outspoken about all this. It is not really the sportswashing, but largely his belief that the game is becoming too fractured.

You may think that LIV is bad for the game but it was certainly good for Dubai - and possibly for its most committed critic.

The Times