After Rory McIlroy skipped out of the St. Jude Championship 2025, being among the top names, it invited criticism and also the restructuring of the rules by Brian Rolapp. The “Rory McIlroy Rule” was one thing that popped out among the entire golf community. However, the Northern Irishman does not seem keen on changing his schedule, adding, in fact, many would say, more headaches for the Tour as the season is coming to an end.

In the pre-tournament press conference of the BMW PGA Championship, he was asked about his plans, “You’ve been on the hamster wheel for 20 years. Is there any sense that this is the golfer version of that, the backpacking trip?” Earlier this year, the golfer completed his dream after 17 years wait, but that got him in an unexpected situation. He shared his motivation for moving forward in his career, saying, “I think what I didn’t plan for or what I didn’t think about was how I was going to feel afterwards in terms of sort of getting motivated again…” However, he has now laid out his plan, with two new events added to his 2025 schedule.

Sharing that, Rory McIlroy answered, “I want to go and play in different places in the world and experience things that I haven’t experienced before. 20 years into a year, or 18 years, to be able to do things for the first time. So, go to India and play for the first time or whatever that may be, that excites me.” The golfer shared that following the same schedule with the same events, “It can get a little bit monotonous and a little bit tedious.” So he has shared his revised schedule to tackle this. In October, he will be in India participating in the DP World India Championship. After that, he will be teeing off at the Australian Open from December 4-7, which he has already won in 2013.

Talking about the motivation for his decision, he shared how Federer influenced him.

McIlroy quoted Federer as his motivator as he said, “To mix it up and do these things — I had a chat with Roger Federer, I don’t know, a few years ago, sort of at the end of his career, and he was saying he wanted to go and play a lot of the places he could never play in his career. So some of the smaller 250 events were just because not a lot of people had never seen him play tennis before. I think as time goes on and I get to this stage of my career, I get excited about doing that sort of thing.” The golfer, who met Federer before his retirement in September 2022, still remembers this interesting discussion. Now, with his career ahead, he is trying to apply that same approach to his job as Federer did. But with him sidelining PGA Tour events, it is not a selfish act, but has a greater impact on the game of golf.

Though, for the tour, it is an adverse decision to make. However, from the game’s standpoint, it’s going to make the sport bigger, which is a larger discussion as a whole.

Rory McIlroy is contributing to the growth of the sport

The recent win of Rory McIlroy at the Amgen Irish Open saw an electrifying course filled with fans cheering for the World No.2. Even the golfer wore his green jacket to share the joy of being an Irish professional winning the event. These efforts are having a significant impact on the game at the global level. Recently, Fried Egg Golf, following his interactions with fans during the event, shared how the golfer is bridging the gap to grow the game beyond the United States.

Golf writer Joseph LaMagna once noted that “outside of being arguably the greatest European golfer ever and a career grand slam champion, McIlroy has made a concerted effort to boost the profile of national opens, which could become a lasting part of his legacy.” Since turning pro in 2007, McIlroy has been one of the game’s most popular figures. While he hasn’t matched Scottie Scheffler’s recent dominance—Scheffler joined the Tour in 2018—McIlroy’s star power is unmatched by almost anyone. In fact, he ranks just behind Tiger Woods in popularity, while Scheffler, despite sitting atop the world rankings, comes in seventh, trailing even Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia.

This view of him is similar to Bryson DeChambeau‘s vision of growing the game of golf worldwide. DeChambeau early this year, had participated in the International Series India, and now McIlroy will participate in the same side of the world later in October.  Such golfers add to the sport, which definitely needs more recognition and players from around the world. SO as far as Rory’s schedule goes, it seems less of a bane but more a boon.