Montgomerie: European Tour needs McIlroy
The European Tour needs the likes of Rory McIlroy playing regularly, according to eight-time Order of Merit winner Colin Montgomerie.
World No.1 McIlroy is one of a number of top European players who are based in America, and only leave the states for the top tournaments.
But with a new CEO coming in to replace the retiring George O’Grady, Montgomerie believes the time is right to get Europe’s most famous faces playing more on their home circuit.
“I think the new CEO has to be very careful about the stars of our tour playing full-time somewhere else,” Montgomerie told reporters at the Turkish Airlines Open.
“We’ve got to be quite careful here. The first thing a sponsor asks is, ‘Who’s playing?’ And too many times nine or 10 of our Ryder Cup team are playing full-time in America and we have to address that.
“We have to have more of our stars playing more in Europe more of the time. That’s a big, big first job of the CEO to try and address that situation.”
Montgomerie believes there are questions to be asked about the Tour’s Final Series, the four-tournament finale to the season.
McIlroy is set to be confirmed as the Race to Dubai money-list winner this weekend, before the season’s final competition, the World Tour Championship in the United Arab Emirates.
“I think we’ll have to tweak the Final Series somehow so the Race to Dubai means something at the end of the day,” Montgomerie added.
“Rory’s played great, don’t get me wrong, but it would be good to have the Race to Dubai competitive throughout the whole series.”
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