As Timothee Chalamet playing Bob Dylan once sang, the times they are a-changin’. Cars drive themselves, computers outsmart college grads and golfers watch more golf on YouTube than CBS. It’s a brave, scary new world out there. The revolution isn’t televised, it’s steaming, leaving anyone over the age of 35 fumbling with the remote (those are still a thing right?).

That includes Rory McIlroy.

On Tuesday at the Players Championship, modern golf’s moral compass spoke on the global state of the game, retirement and the rapidly growing YouTube golf space, where the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, Bob Does Sports, Good Good and Grant Horvat have terraformed an entirely new entertainment ecosystem. Asked about golf’s new frontier during his pre-tournament press conference, McIlroy had this to say:

Question: As somebody who’s involved in TGL himself, how much attention do you pay attention to the YouTube generation here like the Fat Perezes, Grant Horvat — do you look at that at all?

Rory McIlroy: Not really. I’m not of that generation. I’d much rather watch pure competitive — I’d much rather watch this tournament on Saturday and Sunday than watch YouTube golf.

Q: Is there any fascination with how many eyeballs are on that stuff right now?

McIlroy: I’m happy for the people that enjoy it, but I enjoy something else.

This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. McIlroy has been one of the PGA Tour’s biggest ambassadors over the last several years, and despite all the talk about LIV, the tour’s primary competition is online, where millions of golfers flock on a daily basis in order fix their slice, watch the U.S. Open champ tee it up with the President and witness a bunch of buddies try to eat 18 five-dollar-footlongs in 18 holes. Not even McIlroy, with as much pull as he has, is going to stand at the podium and stump for the enemy at their employer’s premier event. That’s just professional suicide.

Even though McIlroy’s response was predictably in character, it nonetheless prompted a rebuttal from Bob Does Sports’ brilliantly dumb mastermind Robby Berger, who Rory failed to recognise in an awkward gas station run-in a few months ago. Take it away, Bob.

Great stuff, especially the “has to swing it like Finau” dagger. That raw entertainment factor is why the PGA Tour isn’t as resistant to the viral content game as McIlroy. In fact, a few hours after McIlroy’s comments, the tour will host its second Creator Classic, inviting some of the top content creators from across the Internet to duke it out at TPC Sawgrass. McIlory is entitled to like what he likes and ignore what he doesn’t, of course, but he should know that in the world of sports—hell, just in the world at large these days—if you’re standing still, you’re getting left behind.

Main Image: Andy Lyons