McIlroy Backs Kinnings: LIV Wanted to 'Destroy' the DP World Tour, and Golf Needs a Reset

Rory McIlroy has picked a side in golf’s civil war, and he picked it in the plainest language available. Asked about DP World Tour chief executive Guy Kinnings’ claim that LIV Golf set out to destroy his tour, McIlroy said he agreed with all of it. The timing matters as much as the words: the Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship starts on Thursday, the season ends in Dubai a week later, and the players deciding whether to return from LIV are making those calls right now.

What did Kinnings actually say?

He said it to The Scotsman, and he said it as something he had been told rather than something he could document. Kinnings told the Edinburgh newspaper that the DP World Tour had to protect itself “against an entity who spent, so we are told, over $7 billion, with one of their aims being to ‘destroy the DP World Tour’”. He added that he had heard that from many different people he has known for over 30 years in the game and trusts implicitly. Reuters’ Field Level Media report carries the quote in full, and GOLF.com carries the same passage from the same interview. The sourcing caveat is part of the story, not a footnote to it: this is an allegation from a tour chief executive based on trusted contacts, and LIV Golf has not publicly answered this specific claim. Sky Sports reports it reached out to LIV for comment.

Why does Kinnings say this explains the 2027 rules?

Because, in his telling, the membership policy follows from the intent. Kinnings said that once faced with such statements, the reason for the tour’s 2027 membership and invite policy “becomes pretty obvious”. That policy is already on the record: the DP World Tour told LIV players they must choose for 2027, with no membership and no Ryder Cup path if they commit to the relaunch. Kinnings also framed the wider economics in the same interview, saying LIV took prize funds to an artificially high level on an unsustainable model, echoing former board member Paul McGinley’s “false economy” description. The tour, he said, holds more than $1 billion in contracted sponsorship value and will consult its tournament committee, board and members on whether to adjust prize funds, reshape the schedule, or seek capital investment.

What did McIlroy add?

A firsthand anecdote and a verdict on the whole experiment. Speaking ahead of Abu Dhabi, McIlroy told Sky Sports: “I agree with everything that Guy said.” He said LIV took players, took sponsors, and turned professional golf into an arms race, and that its people were “going around Augusta saying they wanted to destroy the European Tour”. McIlroy, who defended his Green Jacket at Augusta in April, also gave the LIV era a mixed epitaph: it was, in his words, half a good idea executed poorly, and it was not good for the game. Some of the money was used well, he conceded, pointing to the International Series on the Asian Tour, but he said LIV left the Asian Tour high and dry afterwards. His prescription is the headline: a reset toward sustainability, with less of an arms race, so that tours are still around in 50 years.

What is LIV saying in response?

Something very different from what Kinnings describes, which is exactly the gap this story exposes. GOLF.com notes that LIV chief executive Scott O’Neil’s recent line has been “it’s complete, not compete”, repeated in a letter to fans, and that Bryson DeChambeau, the would-be face of a relaunched league, told a podcast that LIV wants to be accretive rather than combative. That is a pitch for coexistence. Kinnings’ answer, in both Scotsman interviews, is that coexistence was never the other side’s aim: he has previously outlined what he says were attempts to take sponsors, courses and tournaments from the old-world circuit. The two accounts cannot both describe the same four years, and the Abu Dhabi week is where players are choosing which one to believe.

Why does Jon Rahm’s exit matter here?

Because it turns Kinnings’ argument from a claim about intent into a decision by a star player. Rahm, speaking in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, said he left LIV because he was not willing to follow the path the new iteration was taking, GOLF.com reports. He said there were too many unknowns, that it seemed to be moving away from team golf and the things that made LIV what it was, and that it became more of a regular tour. Rahm is not a fringe defector: his refusal to sign for the relaunch was the story when he rejected LIV 2.0 in bankruptcy court, and his exit sits alongside the other departures this desk has tracked, from Adrian Meronk’s uncertain LIV future after his Dunhill win to the tour split over Rahm’s return that Xander Schauffele described. The relaunch’s own future, meanwhile, runs through the BC Partners lifeline and the bankruptcy proceedings that have defined its autumn.

What happens next?

Abu Dhabi first, then Dubai, then the decisions. The Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship begins on Thursday as the penultimate event of the Race to Dubai, and the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai closes the season and settles the standings. On the course, McIlroy’s reset argument will be tested by the golf itself. Off it, the test is simpler: whether more LIV players follow Rahm back before the 2027 choice hardens, or whether the relaunched league produces the commitments it says it is holding for a later announcement. Kinnings has said his tour, in existence for over 50 years, is worth fighting for and that he will continue to fight for it. McIlroy has now said he agrees with all of it. The players with a foot in both camps have heard both men, and the clock on their choice is running out.