McIlroy and DP World Tour chief detail LIV Golf's alleged 'destroy' ambitions

Rory McIlroy has said LIV Golf officials told him during a visit to the Masters this year that they "wanted to destroy the European Tour."

DP World Tour chief executive Guy Kinnings has made a similar allegation about the breakaway league's intentions toward his own circuit, telling The Scotsman's Martin Dempster of comments relayed to him by figures within the game.

Kinnings said LIV Golf's backers had spent "so we are told, over $7 billion," with "one of their aims being to 'destroy the DP World Tour'. I have heard that from so many different people they talked to, who I have known for over 30 years within the game and who I trust implicitly."

Neither claim has been confirmed by LIV Golf, and both remain the accounts of McIlroy and Kinnings rather than established fact.

From 2027, DP World Tour members will face a straight choice between the two circuits, with no scope to play both, underpinning the tour's tougher stance on players linked to a revamped LIV Golf.

That marks a change from this year, when Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and Tom McKibbin were granted exemptions allowing them to compete on both tours despite their LIV Golf commitments.

Kinnings presented the harder line as a necessary response to the threat he described. "Clearly when you are faced with statements like that, and then people then ask why we are doing what we are doing with our membership and invite policy for 2027, then I think the answer becomes pretty obvious," he said.

He framed the decision as a duty to the tour's existing membership. "Myself and everyone at the DP World Tour have a duty to our members to protect our Tour," Kinnings said, adding that the organisation took pride in paying "staff, suppliers, contractors, everyone" on time and treating them "with respect and dignity."

Kinnings also invoked the tour's history in defending the policy, describing a circuit that has "been in existence for over 50 years" and stands for "everything that is good, right and proper in the game," calling it "worth fighting for" and pledging that the DP World Tour would continue to defend its position.

McIlroy's description of comments made during LIV Golf's presence at the Masters mirrors the language Kinnings attributed to the league regarding the DP World Tour, pointing to an unresolved rivalry between the two circuits as the 2027 membership rules approach.

With the exemption arrangements that covered Rahm, Hatton and McKibbin not being repeated, the new policy is set to force clarity on which players remain inside the DP World Tour fold once the next season's invite list is finalised.