Golf - The 2025 Ryder Cup - Bethpage Black Golf Course, Farmingdale, New York, United States - September 28, 2025 Team Europe's Rory McIlroy reacts after missing his putt on the 18th hole during the singles. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters/Dennis Schneidler
Jan 21 (Reuters) - Rory McIlroy said on Wednesday he felt the PGA Tour and LIV Golf had grown "too far apart" to strike a deal that would reunitemen's professional golf.
McIlroy, who has been the PGA Tour's most outspoken member against LIV Golf, would like to see the world's best players compete against each other more than just at the year's four majors but was not hopeful.
"I just don't see a world where it can happen at this point," McIlroy told reporters at Emirates Golf Club ahead of this week's Hero Dubai Desert Classic on the European Tour.
McIlroy's comments came just over a week after the PGA Tour reinstated Brooks Koepka as part of a new programme that offers a limited window for select players to return.
The divide has even captured the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump, an avid golfer who was part of two meetings on the matter at the White House last February when there was optimism the schism between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour would be resolved.
McIlroy, who completed a career Grand Slam with his triumph at last year's Masters, felt relationships between the two circuits were better than when LIV Golf launched in June 2022 but that did not mean either side would make the necessary concessions.
"Just I don't see a world where the two or three sides or whoever it is will give up enough," said McIlroy.
"Like for reunification to happen, every side is going to feel like they will have lost, where you really want every side to feel like they have won ... I think they are just too far apart for that to happen."
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Editing by Ken Ferris)
