DORAL, Fla. — Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy will be in the same place next week, when they head to Georgia’s Augusta National Golf Club for the Masters.
They’re saying the same things this week, albeit a golf world apart.
Sounding an alarm going into the year’s first major, they were among players from both the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf League speaking out — perhaps a bit more forcefully than before — on Wednesday about a need for the game to somehow reunite or risk further eroding its fanbase.
“If you look at the TV ratings of the PGA Tour this year, they’re down 20% across the board. That’s a fifth. That’s big,” said McIlroy, who remains on the PGA Tour. “I would say the numbers on LIV aren’t great either in terms of the people tuning in. I just think with the fighting and everything that’s went on over the past couple years, people are just getting really fatigued of it, and it’s turning people off men’s professional golf. And that’s not a good thing for anyone.”
DeChambeau, who joined LIV in June 2022, was a bit more succinct: “It’s up to the guys up top to figure it out and figure it out quickly, because we can’t keep going this direction. It’s not sustainable, for sure.”