Rory McIlroy has urged his protégé to ditch his impending move to LIV Golf, warning Tom McKibbin that the $5 million (£4 million) fee is not worth the sacrifice.
McKibbin, 22, has yet to confirm the switch to the Saudi-funded circuit, but it is believed that the deal is all but done with the LIV season starting in Riyadh in three weeks’ time.
McKibbin is a member of the same Belfast golf club as McIlroy – Holywood – and from a young age has looked up to his fellow Ulsterman as a mentor. But unless there is an 11th-hour U-turn, he will go against McIlroy’s advice. If he does jump ship – and he is due to appear on Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII team, alongside Tyrrell Hatton – McIlroy acknowledged he will be “disappointed”.
“As soon as he got the offer, he rang me,” said McIlroy “I have known Tom since he was 10 and I talked to him multiple times in December to get a feel of what he was thinking and what he was going to do. All I could do was give my perspective.
“I really like Tom as a person, as a player. I think he’s got a ton of potential. I said to him, ‘If I were in your shoes, I would make a different choice than the one you’re thinking of making’.
“Personally, for me, it would be a little disappointing if it were to happen but I made it perfectly clear: ‘I am not going to stand in your way if you need to make the decision you feel like you need to make for yourself.’ But at the same time, I feel like he’s giving up a lot to not really benefit that much.”
McIlroy listed the possibility of a Ryder Cup debut in New York in September as one of the “sacrifices” – it would almost be impossible to qualify automatically for the Europe team if McKibbin is on LIV’s books. But central to McIlroy’s concerns is the fact that McKibbin will be turning down the PGA Tour card he earned by finishing so high up on the DP World Tour order of merit last year.
“Working so hard to get your card in the States, something that he did, to achieve that goal last year was big,” McIlroy said. “I think what he potentially is sacrificing and giving up with access to majors, potential Ryder Cup spot… I don’t think anything is official yet but if I were in his position and I had his potential, which I think I have been before, I wouldn’t make that decision.”
‘There is still a ton of money to be made on the PGA Tour’
McIlroy is clearly not impressed by the signing-on fee being mooted. There is a $500,000 guarantee for rookies on the PGA Tour and there are record prize purses this year.
“What I would say is, there is still a ton of money to be made on the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour,” McIlroy said. “There is so much money in the game, and some would argue too much money in the game for the eyeballs that we attract. For whatever the benefit may be, I don’t think it’s worth the sacrifice to what he’s potentially going to give up.
“Look, I definitely think he can be a top-10 player in the world but his ranking won’t show that for the next couple of years if he makes one decision over another.”
McIlroy is not the only Irish legend to question the sagacity of a McKibbin defection. “He’s young and I think he still would have been better off learning to compete and win more in Europe and take a few starts in the States,” Padraig Harrington said. “You’re going to make double the money on LIV, but you’re not learning anything.”
The trio are playing here at the Emirates Golf Club in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic that begins on Thursday. If McIlroy is to prevail, he would be the first player on the DP World Tour to win the same event three times in a row since Ernie Els at the Heineken Classic 21 years ago.
