Rory McIlroy hopeful Irish Open can join Scottish Open and be co-sanctioned by PGA Tour in future

Rory McIlroy is hopeful that the Irish Open could follow the path of the Scottish Open and be part of both the European Tour and PGA Tour schedules in the future.

The Genesis Scottish Open was announced on Tuesday as one of three events co-sanctioned between the two tours in 2022 as part of the strategic alliance between the organisations, joining the Barracuda Championship and Barbasol Championship in counting towards both the Race to Dubai and FedExCup standings.

The agreement also sees the prize purse for the Irish Open increased significantly to $6million from 2022, nearly $2.5million on offer for the same event last month, with McIlroy open to the idea of his home Open joining the list of co-sanctioned events in the years ahead.

“I think this is one of the benefits of the strategic partnership between the PGA Tour and the European Tour,” McIlroy said ahead of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. “Obviously the Scottish Open being a FedExCup event next year is huge.

“The Irish Open getting a little burst of money in the prize fund and going up to six million, so it’s all headed in the right direction. I think it’s wonderful for everyone involved. I’ve always said we’re all in this thing together and we need to be pulling in the same direction and this is the start of it, which is great.

“I’ve sat in all those, the PAC [Player Advisory Council] meeting discussions. There were two board calls a couple weeks ago to get it over the line. I’ve been privy to those conversations and it’s great that all the parties involved were able to agree on the sort of smaller details and get it done.

“Hopefully down the line the Irish Open, you know, I think it’s the start of something a little, I don’t know what the word is, bigger or more substantial, but hopefully one day you could maybe see the Irish Open becoming similar to what the Scottish Open has for next year.

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McIlroy has already indicated he plans to return to the Olympics in Paris in 2024, having had his opinion on the Games changed by taking part for Team Ireland, while Dustin Johnson – who sat out of the Rio Olympics in 2016 and this year’s event in Tokyo – is not ruling out competing for Team USA in the future.

“Obviously I support the Olympics and I’m really glad golf’s in it,” Johnson said. “Don’t really regret not going, but yeah, obviously it’s something that I would enjoy and I’m proud to represent my country and do.

“Just this year and obviously it was back I think in 2020 when I pulled out for not playing, but yeah, just wasn’t something that I thought was going to be beneficial for me at that point in time. But, you know, not saying that going forward I wouldn’t play the Olympics.

“I think just with everything that was going on, it was just something that I wasn’t just too keen on. But, you know, obviously watched a little bit of it and I’m always proud and want to represent my country in events like that, but just this year wasn’t something that I thought was beneficial for me.”

Watch the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational throughout the week live on Sky Sports. Live coverage begins with Featured Groups on Thursday from 3pm via the red button, before switching to Sky Sports Golf from 5.30pm.

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