Smith: "Rory McIlroy could be trying to tell us something with his latest PGA Tour decision"

The PGA Tour heads to Jack's Place this week for the 2025 Memorial Tournament with a notable absentee: Rory McIlroy.

McIlroy, 36, has decided to skip the stop at Muirfield Village for the first time since 2017.

The Northern Irishman - a three-time winner of one of the best events of the year - will instead head to Toronto for next week's Canadian Open, which will be his final tournament before the U.S. Open at Oakmont.

On the surface, McIlroy's decision makes sense. He is a two-time winner of the Canadian Open and is following the same strategy he used before The Masters and PGA Championship by taking a short break, then playing the week prior to a major.

The Memorial offers a $20m prize purse and 700 FedEx Cup points to the winner.

McIlroy clearly doesn't need the money and he sits comfortably in second place behind Scottie Scheffler in the rankings. 

But he was part of the elite group of PGA Tour players who lobbied for the creation of these signature events, which are designed to feature the Tour's best and most in-form players.

In August 2022, McIlroy and Tiger Woods convened a players-only meeting in Delaware with the top PGA pros.

They discussed how the Tour should respond to the growing threat of LIV Golf, which at the time had already lured away major champions Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith and Phil Mickelson.

McIlroy later emphasised that the best players should make a concerted effort to compete more frequently together outside of the majors.

The reigning Masters champion also advocated for some signature events to be no-cut tournaments and for golfers to be contractually obliged to participate in all but one of them. 

Netflix cameras even caught McIlroy saying that some players 'had gone soft' and should be required to play in these events if he was willing to do so himself.

Having stars like McIlroy, Scheffler, Xander Schauffele et al guaranteed to play all four days is an appealing prospect for tournament sponsors.

Fast-forward to 2025, and the PGA Tour's schedule now includes eight signature events.

So far, McIlroy has missed three of them: The Sentry, RBC Heritage, and now the Memorial.

To be fair, he traditionally skips the curtain-raiser in Hawaii, preferring to begin his year in the Middle East, and the RBC Heritage falls the week after The Masters.

McIlroy has publicly stated that he's not a fan of Harbour Town as the course doesn't suit his eye but his decision to skip Jack Nicklaus' tournament is particularly noteworthy and potentially driven by multiple factors.

First, it could be argued that McIlroy is genuinely trying to scale back his schedule.

As he has previously explained he no longer wants to do the hard slog of playing upwards of 30 professional events every year. Travel is burdensome and he has a young family. 

Second, perhaps McIlroy is subtly pushing back against PGA Tour leadership and certain high-profile players who seem unwilling to play professional golf outside the United States.

Just look at the recent changes to his schedule.

It was recently confirmed that McIlroy will travel to Australia for the first time as a professional this December.

He's also committed to playing Down Under again in 2026 and will also head to India in October. 

McIlroy has previously expressed his desire for the PGA Tour to adopt a truly global schedule.

Cast your mind back to last January and McIlroy spoke of his desire to see LIV become the IPL of golf by taking up two months of the calendar year with team golf. 

The remaining months, he argued, could be filled with a streamlined PGA Tour schedule for only the top 100 players in the world. 

He spoke of his desires to see national opens elevated. 

Of course, McIlroy is being compensated handsomely for making these changes to his schedule but it sure seems to me he's making a point to his peers about where he thinks the men's game should go.