These Rory quotes from last summer seem pretty prescient today. pic.twitter.com/CUJFZwUWaL

— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterCBS) June 7, 2023

Bunk Moreland said:

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jonj101 said:

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Sacrificial lamb is not the phrase I'd go with. Sure, he got played to an extent, but as he said in another part of the interview he still hates LIV. So he was personally motivated to do/say the things he did.

Maybe its just me, but there are too many people claiming a degree of victim hood these days.

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Agree. I was looking for a video of that part. If he's being honest with himself he never wanted anything to do with LIV, and admittedly was not offered any money from them, even though the internet keeps loving to toss out $400M.

So if he never wanted anything to do with them and he didn't turn down an offer that he was considering...why is he a sacrificial lamb?

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I'm pretty sure he wasn't offered money because he made it clear he wasn't interested, not that they didn't want him. I have little doubt he could have put hundreds of millions of dollars in his pocket from LIV if he had been interested.

I think he feels like the sacrificial lamb because he was made the face of the tour and sent out to do the tour's PR (somewhat of his own decision, but I suspect Monahan et. al. leaned on him to do so as well). Doesn't make him some big victim, but I get his irritation.

Because he said he hated LIV and never received an offer. A sacrificial lamb would more have been one to have decided against taking an offer and then being cut down.

Rory is more of a mark than a sacrificial lamb.

Bunk Moreland said:

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Because he said he hated LIV and never received an offer. A sacrificial lamb would more have been one to have decided against taking an offer and then being cut down.

Rory is more of a mark than a sacrificial lamb.

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He feels like a sacrificial lamb for the Tour. That's got nothing to do with what LIV offered or didn't offer.

And he's talking extemporaneously in a press conference after being blindsided by enormous news that will fundamentally change his sport. If you don't think he has chosen every word perfectly while taking questions from reporters, OK. But I'm not seeing the big deal.

wonder how norman feels again after being on top for a bit and having it yanked away suddenly

jonj101 said:

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Yeah, its like he doesn't want to completely throw Monahan under the bus, but if he wants to blame someone (aside from himself) for parading out there being the mascot of the PGAT only for the tour then to come back and align with Saudi and the PIF, who else besides Jay are you going to point the finger at?

A few other notes:

Its nice that Kyle Porter is providing these updates, but he seems to have a spin/angle towards Rory/Tiger/PGAT. Maybe thats the case, maybe that isn't - I haven't read a lot of his stuff in the past.

Based on publicly available knowledge, Tiger and Rory loathe Greg Norman. As abrasive as Greg can be, it makes him an easy fall guy in this situation. So now that Saudi has what it wants, it can fold LIV completely (if desired), Greg can be the fall guy/antagonist that everyone sees him as, and the new narrative can be a whole kumbaya/good for the game situation and the 'dirty Saudi money' talking points can disappear.

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Tiger hated Norman way before LIV.

Norman got pissed that Tiger moved into his neighborhood and didn't stop by to say hello.

Re: Rory and sacrificial lamb, probably not the right choice of words. But I see where he's coming from.

At the very beginning, LIV wanted to coexist with the PGAT, but the PGAT shut that down immediately. Had there been an option to do LIV for crazy bank and remain on the PGAT, no doubt in my mind that Rory would've said yes and been one of the highest paid participants.

He never got that option because the PGAT squashed that possibility. Now all of the sudden it appears that it actually was an option. And it's because the very person who prevented you from considering it has secretly negotiated a deal that was exactly the opposite of what he was shouting very loudly to everyone. And oh by the way, he comes out the other side with a $7.5MM/yr raise.

I'd bet this whole situation goes 100% against things that Jay Monahan personally said to Rory face to face. If I was Rory I would be pretty damn irritated.


I still think it's very likely that Monahan turns out to be the sacrificial lamb. He looks worse than anyone in this whole thing.

Even before this I thought that Monahan had done an awful job with the whole situation. I think he's the main reason things got so adversarial in the first place.

98Ag99Grad said:

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NLU guys were harping on this. I guess 3 or so years ago Monahan wouldn't take their (Saudis) calls and ignored them altogether. Liv formed to give PIF an entrance in to golf and here we are today.

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This seems to be true, but I can't say that Monahan made some indefensible decision in that moment. Not wanting to get in bed with the Saudis three years ago (that was right after the Khashoggi murder) was not some crazy decision. Most would have done the same thing at that time. But, clearly, hindsight is 20/20 and they would probably do it differently if given the chance. I don't think the PGAT thought the PIF was truly willing to burn the amount of money they have been willing to burn to force their way into golf. If there was a strategic mistake several years ago, it was probably that.

zgolfz85 said:

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how much of the LIV contracts were paid upfront? For those who got huge sign-on bonuses, was that all paid in full upfront?

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Mickelson signed for $200m with $100m upfront and the remaining $100m to be paid out over three years.

Rory was the PGAT's leverage. He's one reason why LIV wasn't able to get all the talented it wanted, ended up relegated to the CW with almost no one watching, and had a very questionable long-term outlook. All that brings the merger to the table because it wasn't gonna be viable. HeMs not the only reason, but the guys that circled the wagons for the PGAT do get somewhat burned here. So I can see what he's trying to say

DannyDuberstein said:

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Rory was the PGAT's leverage. He's one reason why LIV wasn't able to get all the talented it wanted, ended up relegated to the CW with almost no one watching,

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This is quite the leap. Again they were relegated to the CW due to the PR team pushing 9/11 stuff + collusion with the PGAT and the media networks. Not because of Rory McIlroy.

Hence a huge reason why the PGAT would agree to merge. They know all that would come out in the lawsuits.