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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Whether negotiations between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund result in a reunification of professional golf or not, Rory McIlroy said he believes that competition at the highest level of the game needs to be more global.

The World No. 2 said he would like to see the game’s best players compete against one another at least once a month, and perhaps even more than that. Certainly a lot more than in just the four major championships.

“My thing is for golf to stay where it is and be relevant … worldwide. It’s a year-round calendar,” McIlroy told reporters on Wednesday ahead of The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.

“It’s got to be once a month if not more,” he said about how often fans should see the best players in the world brought together. “I think 12 times a year or maybe a smidge higher than that I think would be a good number.”

One week ago, McIlroy cast doubt about the immediacy of a potential union between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour.

Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said Tuesday there is not yet another scheduled meeting between the tour, the Saudis and President Donald Trump, who has been active in the negotiations over the past month.

However the end result pans out, McIlroy would like to see high-level golf become even more global than it is now.

“There is an opportunity to have some of the bigger tournaments outside of America,” said McIlroy, 35, of Northern Ireland. “I’ve always been a worldwide player. I play all around the world. I start my year in the Middle East. I come over here. I go to the UK. After the FedExCup Playoffs I go back to Europe and play four or five events.

“I think we need bigger events in Australia … the Australian Open was always a very big tournament back in the day, and I think that could be one that could be elevated along with some others. But yeah, there’s certainly an opportunity there to be a little more global and worldwide.”

McIlroy will be making his fourth PGA Tour start of the season at The Players Championship, which begins Thursday. He won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in early February before sharing 17th place at The Genesis Invitational and then tying for 15th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday.

“It feels good,” he said of his current form. “I’d say even the two finishes post-Pebble have been almost like the worst that they could be. I finished bad on Sunday at Bay Hill. I finished bad on Sunday at Torrey Pines, as well.

“But the one thing I would say is from the turnaround in my putting from Torrey to Bay Hill was great. I finished, I think, fifth in putting last week, so to see that turnaround was really encouraging. That’s something for me to be really encouraged about going into this week, obviously, and then the next few months.”

McIlroy enjoys a strong comfort level at TPC Sawgrass, where he won the Players Championship in 2019. He owns four top-10s at the venue and fired his career-low opening round score at The Players last year en route to a T19 finish.

“You just have to be so on your game here,” said McIlroy, who will play the first two rounds in a star-studded “super group” with World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and third-ranked Xander Schauffele. “I think that’s the main key. It’s such a course on execution, and if you’re not executing like 100 percent, you leave yourself in spots where it’s really tough to get up-and-down.

“Mistakes can compound here pretty quickly, so you really just have to be on your game and execute as well as you can. I think more than any other course that we play, that’s what it demands. You have to hit the ball where you’re looking, and if you can do that, you can do well here.”

–Mark Lamport-Stokes, Field Level Media