PGA players benefiting from LIV revolution, McIlroy and Rahm admit

Rory McIlroy admitted on Tuesday that the PGA Tour's top golfers were reaping the benefits of the emergence of the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf circuit.

McIlroy, one of the staunchest defenders of the PGA Tour in its bitter feud with LIV over the past year, said the launch of the upstart tour had forced the US-based circuit to innovate.

The Northern Ireland star was speaking ahead of this week's Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, which will tee off on Thursday without its reigning champion Cam Smith - who has since defected to LIV.

The PGA Tour has responded to the emergence of the lucrative LIV circuit by introducing its own money-spinning no-cut events starting in 2024.

McIlroy acknowledged on Tuesday that those changes would probably not have happened had it not been for the rise of LIV Golf.

"I'm not going to sit here and lie; I think the emergence of LIV or the emergence of a competitor to the PGA Tour has benefited everyone that plays elite professional golf," McIlroy told a press conference.

"I think when you've been the biggest golf league in the biggest market in the world for the last 60 years, there's not a lot of incentive to innovate.

"This has caused a ton of innovation at the PGA Tour. What was quite, I would say, an antiquated system is being revamped to try to mirror where we're at in the world in the 21st century with the media landscape.

"The PGA Tour isn't just competing with LIV Golf or other sports. It's competing with Instagram and TikTok and everything else that's trying to take eyeballs away from the PGA Tour as a product.

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"LIV coming along, it's definitely had a massive impact on the game, but I think