what’s expected of Rory McIlroy within this time

I hope Rory McIlroy never changes because we need more athletes who are willing to give us their unfiltered opinions, no matter whom they might offend. Unlike other say-nothing professional golfers, Rory is not afraid to give us his unvarnished viewpoint without the requisite sugar-coating — even if his stance is not popular among his peers.

“Why wouldn’t I speak my mind?” McElroy said Saturday after firing a record-tying back-nine 30 to pull within four shots of the leaders heading into the final round of The Arnold Palmer Invitational. “You ask me my opinion and I give it to you. I’m not going to stand up here and lie to you.”

He’s 34 now, but he was the same at 24. Back in 2013 when iconic players such as Tiger Woods stayed silent on the Open Championship being played at Muirfield — the storied Scottish course that didn’t allow female members at the time — the 24-year-old Rory at least had the guts to say, “This is something that shouldn’t be happening these days.” When Muirfield finally did start allowing women four years later, Rory said during a press conference right here at the Arnie that it was “obscene” and “horrendous” it took Muirfield so long to do the right thing.

Rory could have easily ignored the controversy like Tiger did, but he gave his honest opinion. Likewise, he could have tap-danced around a question asked by renowned national golf writer Bob Harig of SI.com Friday at the Arnie, but he confronted the question head on and ended up ruffling feathers in the process.

Rory said he would like to see the PGA Tour become “more cutthroat, more competitive” by contracting instead of expanding. Rory wants fewer golfers and fewer tournaments and presumably wants the PGA Tour to be more of a World Tour composed of 17 or 18 no-cut tournaments with only elite golfers competing.

“Probably won’t be very popular for saying this but I’m all for less players and less Tour cards, and the best of the best,’’ McIlroy said.

Rory was right. His comments weren’t popular with some of the rank-and-file PGA Tour members who are grinding every week in an attempt to make the field in the Tour’s new smaller and more-exclusive “signature events” like the Arnie. It used to be that the Arnie’s field was made up of 120 golfers, with nearly half the field missing the cut, but this year the field was just 69 golfers and only 11 missed the cut.

When asked what he thought about Rory wanting the PGA Tour to have just the top golfers competing in exclusive no-cut tournaments, fellow PGA Tour player Erik van Rooyen fired back:

“Then let him go to LIV,” van Rooyen said. “I love Rory. He’s one of the best players ever, but what he’s saying sounds like LIV. I think tournaments with no cuts suck. … [Making the cut] is such an integral part of our sport. To make them [PGA Tour tournaments] smaller [with no cuts], why not just hand them the cash if that’s what it’s about?”

It’s certainly ironic that van Rooyen is saying Rory’s philosophy seems closer to the LIV Golf model than the traditional PGA Tour model. After all, it was Rory who was one of LIV’s strongest critics, saying numerous times how much he “hates” what LIV has done to the game of golf. He even said once it would be “hard to stomach” playing in the same tournament as the LIV defectors who left the PGA Tour.

Personally, I never blamed those golfers who took the hundreds of millions of dollars of guaranteed LIV money, but I admire Rory a lot more for NOT taking LIV’s money. And, believe me, he could have commanded more LIV money than anybody except for maybe Tiger himself. Let’s face it, if LIV could have recruited the popular and charismatic Rory into its ranks, it would have brought the PGA Tour to its knees.

Nobody knows exactly what Jon Rahm recently received to make the jump to LIV, but let’s just guesstimate that he got $300 million. Well, if Rahm’s worth $300 million, Rory’s worth twice that.

And don’t think the PGA Tour isn’t nervous about Rory softening his stance on LIV in recent months, saying on the popular United Kingdom “Stick to Football” podcast that he has been too “judgmental” of LIV golfers.

“I think what LIV has done, it’s exposed the flaws in the system of golf,” Rory said. “… I think what LIV and the Saudis have exposed is that you’re asking for million