Rory McIlroy chips to the 18th green during the third round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions on Jan. 5, 2019 at the Kapalua Plantation Course. McIlroy, the president of the PGA Tour’s Players Advisory Committee, has spoken against the proposed Premier Golf League, a Saudi-backed “super league” that has reportedly offered some of golf’s biggest stars up to $30 million to play on the breakaway circuit. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

As the world of golf wrestles with reports of a proposed Premier Golf League, it doesn’t appear the Saudi-backed “super league” will have much of an influence on the Sentry Tournament of Champions.

Officials from the event held each January at the Kapalua Plantation Course declined direct comment, but referred to recent players’ comments and other statements from golf administrators.

The PGA Tour also declined comment officially, but European Tour chief executive Keith Pelley did. In November 2020, the European Tour and PGA Tour agreed to a “strategic alliance,” with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan also taking a seat on the European Tour’s board.

Pelley said in a statement earlier this month: “We are aligned with the PGA Tour in opposing, in the strongest possible terms, any proposal for an alternative golf league.

“Since the launch of our strategic alliance last November, our two organisations have been working together to make global golf less fractured and not create further division, with the interests of all players and fans at the forefront of our thinking.”

While worldwide reports have said that Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose have been offered as much as $30 million guaranteed to play on the proposed circuit, joining the breakaway league would lead to a ban from the PGA Tour, according to several reports.

A player banned by the PGA Tour would not be eligible to play in the Sentry TOC, which requires a PGA Tour win from the calendar year prior to qualify.

Due to tournament cancellations in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Sentry event added non-winning players who qualified for the 2020 Tour Championship as a top-30 finisher in the FedEx Cup playoffs.

PGA Tour officials confirmed to The Maui News this week that the 2022 Sentry Tournament of Champions will be back to a field of 2021 PGA Tour winners only.

Rory McIlroy, the president of the PGA Tour’s Players Advisory Committee, said a new program from the tour — the Player Impact Program — will help combat the upstart idea of a new world golf league.

Golfweek reported last month that the Player Impact Program began Jan. 1 to “recognize and reward players who positively move the needle.” At the end of the year, a pool of $40 million will be distributed among 10 players, with the player deemed most valuable receiving $8 million.

“Yeah, so look, the Player Impact Program, it’s a way to — it’s a way to reward the top players for engaging with the PGA Tour, but it’s also a program designed to — it’s not as if it’s just, okay, the top-10 players or, you know, the top-10 names in the game get this money and thank you for your loyalty,” McIlroy said at a press conference last week. “There’s a bit more to it.”

Rose has been one of the top names mentioned as a target for the Premier Golf League.

“I think that Justin Rose made a good point,” McIlroy said. “He said a rising tide lifts all ships. I think with the top players being more engaged in the Tour and the goings on, it will help the rest of the membership. I think that’s how I feel about it.”

McIlroy emphasized that the PGA Tour — and other pro tours — are making a big point of combatting the proposed breakaway league with the Player Impact Program.

“I think it’s a great initiative by the Tour,” McIlroy said. “I think everyone knows it was a little bit designed to try to appease some of the people that had their heads turned by different leagues or SGL, PGL, Tour de Force, whatever you want to call it, but I think it’s a very prudent move on the Tour’s part.”

Justin Thomas is a two-time winner of the Sentry TOC and does not appear to be going anywhere either.

“I love it out here on the PGA Tour, and we’re very fortunate to get to go to some unbelievable places and play for a lot of money and have an opportunity to grow our brands and grow the game of golf,” Thomas said last week. “I’m very content and very happy with everything how it’s going here.”

NBC and Golf Channel analyst Mark Rolfing — a longtime Maui resident — does not think it is likely that the Sentry TOC will feel much impact at all, even if the long-shot new league becomes reality.

If there are significant defectors, however, that could be more difficult on the PGA Tour as a whole, according to Rolfing.

“They’re zeroing in on a few key guys and in my estimation there’s only a couple of players that that model makes any potential sense for,” Rolfing said earlier this week. “But you can really muddy the water in a sport if you’ve got a couple superstars that defect. I think that would be tragic for the PGA Tour.

“If you look at what’s happened to tennis, you hardly know who’s playing in what tournament anymore. The bulk of the tournaments kind of don’t mean anything and that’s what makes golf different. This is nothing but being about the money and I don’t think that’s the way the game operates at the highest level these days and you’re seeing the reaction from a lot of the players.”

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com