Rory McIlroy calls out critical PGA Tour player who skipped meeting
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[March 08, 2023]
Rory McIlroy called it "a slap in the face" for James Hahn to miss
Tuesday's player meeting after Hahn had strongly criticized the PGA
Tour's new format of play announced for 2024.
"Like, you say all this (expletive) and you're not even in the
meeting?" the star from Northern Ireland said to reporters after his
news conference Tuesday at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.,
where both McIlroy and Hahn are competing at the Players
Championship this week.
"If you want to get informed and be a part of the process ... The
fact that he wasn't even in the room was a slap in the face to
everyone there."
During a phone interview with Golfweek on March 4, Hahn, 41,
criticized the plan by the PGA Tour to change to a new Designated
Event Model in 2024, which is largely seen as a response to the
controversial Saudi-backed LIV circuit having poached some PGA Tour
players.
"I hate them," Hahn told Golfweek of the changes. "I'm gonna say
exactly what 99.99 percent of fans said about players leaving for
the LIV Tour. If our players just said, ‘We're doing this for the
money,' I would have a lot more respect for them. But how they're
covering up what they're doing and trying to make it a thing about
sponsors and fans and saving opposite-field events. I think that's
all BS."
The system of designated events went into play this year, aimed at
keeping players on the PGA Tour. The tour raised the minimum purse
at each of these events to $20 million.
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Now, the PGA Tour has tinkered with the tournaments
further. In the 2024 season, each designated event will have a field
of between 70 and 80 players, with a guarantee to play all four
rounds for purses of $20 million or more.
"Right now, they're just covering their ass and
saying everything that the PGA Tour basically has trained them to
say, have taught them to say and try to make it not about money when
everyone knows 100 percent it's about more guaranteed money being
funneled to the top players in the world. We've been talking about
money for the last two years and for them not to say that that's not
the No. 1 reason why they're making these changes -- it's very, very
hypocritical."
Hahn hasn't won since the 2016 Wells Fargo Championship and has
missed 13 cuts since last year's Players Championship. He qualified
for the Players this year because he finished 113th in the FedEx Cup
standings in 2022.
McIlroy, 33, is ranked No. 3 in the world after finishing a shot
behind leader Kurt Kitayama last week at the Arnold Palmer
Invitational. He could become No. 1 with a victory this week at TPC
Sawgrass.
--Field Level Media
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