A leaner, meaner Tour? Rory's in favor, but not everyone wants that diet

ORLANDO, Fla. – By now we know that if Rory McIlroy had his way, the PGA Tour would be going on professional golf’s version of the Atkins diet.

A leaner, meaner PGA Tour; that’s McIlroy’s wish.

“Probably won't be very popular for saying this,” McIlroy said Friday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which this year featured just 69 competitors, “but I'm all for less players and less Tour cards, and the best of the best.”

It's not the first time McIlroy has expressed his vision to trim the fat. Earlier this season at Riviera, he shared his pie-in-the-sky idea of a world tour comprised of the top 80 players – and only those players – and into which all other tours would feed up. He admittedly still hasn’t hashed out too many details in his head, but on Saturday, McIlroy expounded a touch more, stating he wants more pathways for the younger generation and fewer hangers-on.

“I just feel like there are a lot of categories on Tour that people are sort of still benefiting off what they did like five or 10 years ago,” McIlroy said. “I feel like the most competitive professional golf tour in the world, you should have to come out and prove yourself year after year after year.”

McIlroy’s sentiment was shared by Wyndham Clark, already a signature-event winner this season courtesy of his 54-hole win over an 80-man Pebble Beach field. The only difference is Clark would like to see a PGA Tour of 100 players – and with strict churn.

“And we have 20 guys that get relegated every time, every year, doesn't matter who you are,” Clark added. “It would be exciting because you come down to the end of the year, people are looking who is going to win the FedExCup, and then you're looking at who is not going to be here next year. … And then we would still have maybe a little bit bigger of a cut. It would be simple, because you know these hundred guys have a card and, no matter what, they're playing in the events and there's no, you know, this guy gets in or whatever sponsor invites. I think it would just be really easy. Then, if you lose your card, you go down to the next one, and vice versa.”

Adam Hadwin, hardly a superstar like McIlroy, feels that no matter the size of the PGA Tour, the main goal should be to ensure the best players compete against each other as much as possible. He noted how in recent years the Tour’s product had become “watered down,” with too many events and too few stars teeing it up on any given week outside of the majors and a few other big events.

Other sports, Hadwin points out, don’t have that problem.

“There’s an expectation that if you are on the team, you will play,” Hadwin said.

Currently, the PGA Tour is struggling to provide ample playing opportunities for all its full members, most notably its younger generation – a handful of Korn Ferry Tour and Q-School graduates, who had gotten into just three of nine events prior to this week and will play about a fourth of their schedule's worth in opposite-field events. There is another subset of conditional members behind them, many of whom teed it up this week in Puerto Rico. Reading off some of that event's MCs: George McNeill, D.A. Points, Geoff Ogilvy. Need we go on?

“I do think we have to reach a point where having a PGA Tour card means something,” Hadwin added. “The guys coming off the Korn Ferry Tour and out of Q-School, they’ve played how many events so far? I think something needs to be looked at. I wouldn’t be against what Rory is talking about. It sucks to say that because it would mean less opportunities for some. But for the greater good of our product, I think you need to have the best players playing together most often, and there probably needs to be an expectation that, ‘You’re going to play this.’”

Ask most players in these signature fields, and you’ll probably receive similar feedback. But not everyone cashing checks after these $20 million tournaments is fully onboard with a potential New Ror’ld Order.

Nick Taylor, a self-proclaimed “fringe guy” for many years, isn’t in favor of cutting cards.

“There are a lot of young players who people don’t know who are really, really good and they need some opportunities to get going,” Taylor said.

And these skinny signature events? “Having these cuts (11 of the 69 players trunk-slammed early at API) seems a little bit silly,” said Taylor, who feels the sweet spot for signature fields is “probably 120, maybe 100.”

Added Grayson Murray, who broke out of the reorder category this year by winning the Sony Open: “Whatever the cut is at Augusta [with 100 players] seems to work pretty well.”

Erik van Rooyen was less diplomatic.

“I saw Wyndham’s comment,” van Rooyen began. “Two years ago, Wyndham was in the 100-125 spot. He would’ve lost his card, and now he’s a major winner, and all of a sudden…”

Van Rooyen continued: “And Rory, I know he said he wants the Tour to be more cutthroat. Well, this is the most cutthroat sport there is; you miss the cut, you’re gone, bro. You’re not making money. … The NBA has over 300 guys playing. We have 144 guys playing [next week at The Players]; that’s not a lot, and more than half of them aren’t making money.”

Don’t get van Rooyen wrong; he loves playing in these lucrative events (Scheffler took home a crisp $4 million for winning Sunday). But he can’t help but also feel that pro golf is in a “strange spot” as dollar bills spill out of players' pockets and hitting the green takes on new meaning.

“I think this idea that we’re worth what Premier League soccer players are worth is completely mind-blowing,” van Rooyen said. “I’m sorry, Jon Rahm, you’re a fantastic player, but you’re not worth the zeroes they gave you, you’re not worth more than what Cristiano Ronaldo is making. I’m sorry, we don’t have the following. We’re not the NBA, we’re not the NFL. I get there are a handful of really famous and really good golfers; how many of them have won tournaments so far this year?”

Scheffler, of course, would answer the bell just a few hours later.

This time, lean worked out, the modelers left fat and happy.

But the great debate will surely still continue: Would the PGA Tour benefit by shedding more pounds, or should it tip the scales back in the other direction and return a few notches to the signature events' belts?

Make room in this diet for some popcorn.