Rory McIlroy Questions Golf's Major Schedule

The four-time Major champion told the BBC that golf should follow tennis in spacing its Majors out

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The four-time Major champion told the BBC that golf should follow tennis in spacing its Majors out

Rory McIlroy Questions Golf's Major Schedule

Rory McIlroy wants to see golf's Major calendar stretched out in a similar way to tennis.

The four-time Major winner was speaking to Andrew Cotter for the BBC's 'The Cut Podcast' where he explained his desire for golf to stay relevant for as long as possible.

Currently, all four golf Majors now take place between early April and mid-July with the new main PGA Tour schedule crammed into the March to August period.

It means that the Majors come around very quickly before a nine month wait from mid-July to April for them to start back up again.

"If the narrative becomes that the Majors are the only important thing in golf, then that’s dangerous narrative to run with because then are fans not going to care for the other 48 weeks of the year?," McIlroy told the BBC.

“If the Majors are spaced so closely together, are fans only gonna care from the second week in April to the third or fourth week in July?

"And then everything else doesn't really matter.

“I’d like to see them spaced out the way tennis does it.

"They have the Australian Open in January and then the US Open is going on now, they’ve a nice nine-month window of relevancy.

"That's my thing with golf, you want to stay relevant for as long as possible throughout they year and you want as many eyeballs on it as possible and I don't know by spacing the Majors so closely together if that's the right thing to do."

Related: Jack Nicklaus - "I don't like the new Major schedule"

McIlroy is back on the European Tour this week at the Omega European Masters after winning the FedEx Cup last week at East Lake where he took the $15m prize.

He is currently up to 2nd in the world rankings.

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Elliott Heath
News Editor

Elliott Heath is our News Editor and has been with Golf Monthly since early 2016 after graduating with a degree in Sports Journalism. He manages the Golf Monthly news team as well as our large Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. He covered the 2022 Masters from Augusta National as well as five Open Championships on-site including the 150th at St Andrews. His first Open was in 2017 at Royal Birkdale, when he walked inside the ropes with Jordan Spieth during the Texan's memorable Claret Jug triumph. He has played 35 of our Top 100 golf courses, with his favourites being both Sunningdales, Woodhall Spa, Western Gailes, Old Head and Turnberry. He has been obsessed with the sport since the age of 8 and currently plays off of a six handicap. His golfing highlights are making albatross on the 9th hole on the Hotchkin Course at Woodhall Spa, shooting an under-par round, playing in the Aramco Team Series on the Ladies European Tour and making his one and only hole-in-one at the age of 15 - a long time ago now!

Elliott is currently playing:

Driver: Titleist TSR4

3 wood: Titleist TSi2

Hybrids: Titleist 816 H1

Irons: Mizuno MP5 5-PW

Wedges: Cleveland RTX ZipCore 50, 54, 58

Putter: Odyssey White Hot OG #5

Ball: Srixon Z Star XV