Rory McIlroy slams LIV Golf in fiery Olympics press conference

Rory McIlroy has stoked the embers of his feud with the LIV Golf defectors , attributing their potential absence from the 2024 Olympics to the subpar level of competition in the Saudi Arabian tour.

The pro from Northern Ireland hasn't held back in lambasting the highly lucrative Saudi-funded league for siphoning off top golfers with its hefty financial incentives .

The 35-year-old golfer reckons the LIV Tour just can't match up to the PGA Tour when it comes down to the crunch , and took a swipe at his former colleagues who might now miss out on major events like the Olympics due to their switch.

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Quizzed about the prospect of a less star-studded Olympic golf event due to the failure of some big names to qualify, McIlroy dished out a frank take during a press briefing on Tuesday.

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"I mean, I don't think there's any other way to do it because it's hard to compare the golf that they play to the golf that we play. That's the reason they didn't get World Ranking points, right?" he emphasized to the assembled media.

McIlroy doubled down on his stance: "So if you want to qualify for the Olympics, you knew what you had to do. Just like if you wanted to qualify for the Ryder Cup, you knew what you had to do. They were very aware of the decision they made when they did."

Despite not facing an outright ban from the Olympics, LIV players have seen their world rankings take a hit post-defection, potentially sidelining them from the global contest, including double major winner Jon Rahm among others.

Bryson DeChambeau, the US Open champion, is undoubtedly one of golf's top players. However, the 30 year old was not included in Team USA's four-man lineup for the tournament starting at Le Golf National on Thursday.

Instead, the American team consists of Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa.

Rory McIlroy from Northern Ireland, who previously expressed his "resentment" towards the Games for forcing him to choose between representing Ireland or Great Britain, confessed that it would be disappointing not to have all the world's best players in Paris.

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He said: "You'd like to think that if you're going to win something really prestigious in the sport then you want all the best players playing and that isn't quite happening here."

Despite this, he added: "It's still very meaningful and if I were to win a medal, especially a gold medal, it would mean a lot to me."

Reflecting on his previous experience at Tokyo 2020, he shared: "I was really close to winning a medal last time - I said I'd never tried as hard to finish third in my life - so once you're in there and especially if you are in contention for a medal, you feel the buzz of it and it's really cool."

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