Sergio Garcia vehemently discredits Rory McIlroy pitch for LIV Golf future

Rory McIlroy recently made headlines when he appeared on Sky Sports. stick to football Podcast. LIV His opinion of golf and its role in professional golf appeared to have changed. The Northern Irishman detailed how LIV pointed out some of the flaws in the PGA Tour and how rival leagues could persist into the future. However, only for a short time.

McIlroy drew similarities to cricket's Indian Premier League, which changes its format in short order.

However, the Fireballs GC captain, Sergio Garcia According to The Standard, he did not support the proposal.

“We don't want to be important for just one month,” Garcia said. “We all deserve so much more.”

If McIlroy has his way, this team format will continue for a month or two every year.

“You have four weeks in May, four weeks in November, and you go and work on your team. It's a little different, it's a different format,” McIlroy said on the podcast. “If they were to do something like that, I think it would be fun. At least they're working within an ecosystem.”

Garcia and many others at LIV believe the Saudi-backed tour will continue. The money PIF puts into the league is for growth and survival, not for playing a few times a year.

LIV recently signed a major contract with Jon Rahm worth approximately $550 million, which was a monumental change. The Spaniard believes Rahm's acquisition shows LIV Golf is not going anywhere.

“It shows we're going to be here for a long time,” he said. “People thought this was going to last two or three years, and then it's over. We're seeing players who are looking towards the late 2020s and even into the 2030s.”

When Rahm was signed, many tour players did not criticize his choice. Instead, they called out the PGA Tour's leadership. Viktor Hovland had quite a lot to say about their “arrogance”.

Many of the players who left for LIV before Rahm received a lot of flak from McIlroy and other PGA Tour players as well, but not the reigning Masters champion. Garcia understood why.

“[Rahm] Perhaps we should be a little grateful for that. Since we are the first participants, we knew there would be some level of enthusiasm,” Garcia said. “We believed in the product, we believed in how good LIV was, and it could be even better. We had to ride the wave of criticism. But now people are starting to see the reality.”

Photo by: Warren Little/Getty Images

It seems very likely that an agreement will be reached between Saudi Arabia's PIF and the PGA Tour.

But as we've said all along, and as Garcia clearly agrees, LIV isn't going anywhere.

Savannah Lee Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation's Playing Through.If you want to know more about golf, please follow us. @_PlayingThrough On all major social platforms. You can also follow her on Twitter @SportsGirls and Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports.