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Tom McKibbin, the rising and protected star of Rory McILroy, is about to go radically to Liv Golf despite a first season on the PGA Tour.
The 22-year-old North Irishman, who developed his game in the same Belfast club as the quadruple major champion, is about to join the Liv team from Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton.
Despite McILroy’s opposition to Liv as soon as it was created, it would even seem that McKibbin’s men contacted the dissident league supported by Saudi Arabia to launch this approach.
A probable change, reported for the first time by the Spanish website Tengolf, will be an annoying subject of discussion while McKibbin will participate in the general rehearsal of the Abu Dhabi Team Cup for the Ryder Cup this week. Hatton is also part of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team, led by Justin Rose and supervised by Luke Donald.
The likely defection of McKibbin occurs after he asked for a PGA Tour card in November, after finishing among the 10 best players without a card during the Race to Dubai of the DP World Tour.
However, he seems ready to give up this opportunity and take the last place in the Legion XIII team from Rahm with Hatton and the American Caleb Surratt in the four -playing team. He is about to become the second Northern Ireland player to go to Liv Golf after Graeme McDowell, winner of the 2010 US Open, joined him in 2022.
After the Team Cup event in Abu Dhabi this week, McKibbin should participate in the Dubai Desert Classic of the DP World Tour next week. The golf season Liv begins in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on February 6.
It remains to be seen what McILroy thinks of McKibbin’s decision, which became a professional in April 2021 and won his first DP World Tour event in June 2023 at the Porsche European Open in Germany.
McILroy, another Holywood golfer, was particularly interested in the trajectory of his career, the players sharing a warm embrace after McKibbin won his PGA Tour card and McILroy won the Race To Dubai and the DP World Tour Championship.
The initial fierce opposition of McILroy to the concept of Liv Golf as of its creation has however attenuated since.
McKibbin remains a candidate to win a place in the European team of Ryder Cup in September.
