Rory McIlroy says he can be 'helpful in process' in bid to unite golf

A vote will decide if the world No 2 will reclaim a seat alongside Tiger Woods on the influential policy board, but McIlroy, speaking ahead of teaming up with Shane Lowry in this week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans, opened up on why he’s ready to perform a U-turn five months after stepping down.

“I think I can be helpful,” said McIlroy on the ongoing talks between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund about a framework agreement struck last June. “I don't think there's been much progress made in the last eight months, and I was hopeful that there would be. I think I could be helpful to the process. But only if people want me involved, I guess.

"When Webb [Simpson] and I talked and he talked about potentially coming off the board, I said, look, if it was something that other people wanted, I would gladly take that seat, and that was the conversation that we had.

“I feel like I care a lot, and I have some pretty good experience and good connections within the game and sort of around the wider sort of ecosystem and everything that's going on. But, at the end of the day, it's not quite up to me to just come back on the board. There's a process that has to be followed. But I'm willing to do it if that's what people want, I guess.”

McIlroy talked recently about how the “game is way better with all of us together” and was asked if his stance on unification had become even stronger in his time off the policy board. “Absolutely, yeah. I think it's the only way forward for the game of golf,” he stressed.

The four-time major winner said he was ready to “compromise” with the likes of Patrick Cantlay and Jordan Spieth after not seeing eye-to-eye on certain matters, having raised a few eyebrows when he said there should be a punishment-free pathway back to the US circuit for LIV Golf players.

“But also try to articulate your points as well as you can and try to help people see the benefits of what unification could do for the game and what it could do for this tour in particular,” he added. “We obviously realize the game is not unified right now for a reason, and there's still some hard feelings and things that need to be addressed, but I think at this point for the good of the game, we all need to put those feelings aside and all move forward together.

“We're golfers at the end of the day. We don't need to be trying to run a $15 billion business. We need to go out there and play golf and let the business people do the business things.”