Rory McIlroy refuses to rise to the bait and gives Talor Gooch ‘benefit of doubt’ after LIV rival questioned the legitimacy of his major victories

Rory McIlroy has refused to take the bait after LIV rival Talor Gooch questioned the legitimacy of major championship wins.

The four-time major winner from Northern Ireland, who can complete a Grand Slam career by winning April’s Masters, was speaking on the eve of the opening round of the PGA Tour’s Cognizant Classic at PGA National.

McIlroy was responding to comments made by 2023 LIV Golf season champion Talor Gooch to the Australian Golf Digest, who labeled the Masters as diminished for not having more LIV talent as the Saudi-backed upstart series failed to gain points in the world rankings .

“If Rory McIlroy is going to complete his Grand Slam without some of the best players in the world, there will just be an asterisk,” Gooch told the magazine.

McIlroy said he wanted to give LIV player Talor Gooch ‘the benefit of the doubt’.

The Northern Irishman celebrates winning the Open Championship at Hoylake in 2014

“The Masters is invitation-only and they invite anyone they think deserves an invitation,” said McIlroy, who will play in the Cognizant Classic starting Thursday at PGA National – the site of what used to be called the Honda Classic.

‘I think to be fair to Talor: if you read the whole question and then the answer, it’s not like he just came out with that. I feel like whoever did the interview put him on that path of saying that, so I’m kind of giving him the benefit of the doubt there. He just agreed with what the interviewer asked.”

Gooch made the comment to Australian Golf Digest, published earlier this week. Gooch – who is currently out of the Masters field, presumably because his world ranking has plummeted due to LIV events not counting in that formula – said: ‘If Rory McIlroy is going to complete his Grand Slam without some of the best players in the world, there will simply be an asterisk. It’s just reality. I think everyone wins if the majors figure out a way to get the best players in the world there.”

McIlroy – a three-time FedExCup champion – is playing in the Masters for the sixteenth year in a row. He lost a four-shot lead in the final round of 2011, played in the final group with winner Patrick Reed in 2018 and his best finish was second place in 2022, three shots behind Scottie Scheffler.

Gooch has played in the Masters twice. He finished 14th in 2022 and 34th last year, and has won three times since joining LIV.

But that wasn’t enough to earn an invite. LIV’s Joaquin Niemann received a special invite from Augusta National last week after winning the Australian Open in December, finishing fifth in the Australian PGA and fourth in the Dubai Desert Classic – four shots behind McIlroy.

“I played with him in Dubai a few weeks ago, and he went to Australia and won,” McIlroy said of Niemann. ‘Last week he was in Oman. He’ll chase his tail around the world to get his hands on this, fight his way into Augusta or show enough form to warrant an invite. I don’t know if the same can be said for Talor.’

If McIlroy wins the Masters, he will join Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as those who have claimed the men’s career Grand Slam.

McIlroy has made numerous comments in recent years about LIV and golfers who went there, ranging from outrage (“I hate what it’s doing to the game of golf. I hate it. I really do,” he said after winning the FedExCup in August 2022 ) before eventually taking a more conciliatory tone (“I can’t condemn people for making that decision,” he said in recent months). When Rahm left for LIV in December, McIlroy told Sky Sports that he wants the Ryder Cup eligibility rules to be rewritten because “I definitely want Jon in the next Ryder Cup team,” he said.

And on Wednesday, that cycle – someone says something to start something – probably continued. When McIlroy was recently asked for a response to his former agent Chubby Chandler suggesting he might actually join LIV, the response was, “He might know a thing or two.” Who knows?’

It was difficult to gauge how serious McIlroy was at that moment. It seems that way, given how complicated this era of golf sometimes seemed.

The likes of Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau – all recent major winners – joined LIV for highly lucrative deals in recent years, and the PGA Tour has had to find new ways to stay competitive.

Talor Gooch questioned the legitimacy of major championship victories without LIV players

Earlier this year, the PGA Tour signed Strategic Sports Group as a minority investor for as much as $3 billion, and it remains unknown whether it will ultimately strike a deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

Camilo Villegas, a former champion of what is now the Cognizant who was part of the field at PGA National this week, was announced Wednesday as the new chairman of the PGA Tour Players Advisory Council.

It means he will join the PGA Tour Policy Board for a three-year term from January 1, and said he is keen to take on the role at a challenging time for the game.

“I think golf is in an interesting situation,” Villegas said. ‘I think the rope is quite tangled. It needs to be untangled. It will unravel. How long will it take? We do not know. We wish we had a crystal ball. I truly believe the game of golf will win.”