Rory McIlroy envisions Champions League-like 'world tour' for golf to unify the game

The golfing world is still waiting patiently for a resolution to the ongoing merger talks between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, with no resolution currently in sight.

After Saturday's third round at the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles, the Northern Irishman was asked how he would go about reunifying the game of golf at the top level. 

While he admitted his idea was "pie in the sky", McIlroy suggested a "world tour" to bookend each season that brings together the best players from the various tours around the world to compete against each other, similar to how the Champions League in football brings together the best clubs from around Europe.

"I would think it would be one tour. I think you would just create a tour for the top 80 players in the world. Then I think everything sort of feeds up in that one. The way I look at it, it would be like [the] Champions League in European football," McIlroy said.

"It sort of sits above the rest of the leagues and then all those leagues sort of feed up into that and the best of the best play against each other in the Champions League is how I would think about it."

McIlroy also sees the potential of such a Champions League-like tour going global and taking place all over the world.

"I think there has to be a component of the southern hemisphere, Australia, South Africa.. and the Far East, whether that be Korea, Japan, China. Obviously the Middle East as well. We've been going to the Middle East for a long time, but obviously Dubai, Saudi, and then sort of working our way from east to west and back into the US for the sort of spring, summertime," he added.

"I don't think it will look too dissimilar to what it is right now, but maybe the front end of the year and the back end of the year might look a little different. I don't think we need to blow everything up, but there definitely needs to be some tweaks, I think."

Should such an idea come to pass, it won't be McIlroy driving it, as he recently resigned from his post on the PGA Tour's policy board and will no longer be spearheading changes in the game. 

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