Rory McIlroy signs with Nike.. Rory and Tiger Film Commercial Together (Updates)

On another large golf forum, many hint at the fact that Rory McIlroy may hop ship to Nike once his deal ends with Titleist.  Also stated was that if this were to happen, Oakley would be dropped to in favour of Nike's clothing line.  The only reason this was brought about was of his new friendship with Tiger Woods.

So what are everyone's thoughts on this ?  Personally I hope he stays with Titleist & Oakley and believe he will, why fix something that isn't broke.

EDIT: 10/30/12 UPDATE- http://thesandtrap.com/t/62083/mcilroy-rumours-of-switching-to-nike/54#post_781232

Smart move by Tiger if he does own a piece of Nike Golf as someone here suggested.  He'll have the guy positioned to take his place in the game to use the equipment from the company he owns.  When Rory wins so will Tiger.

Rory has had a lot of success with Titleist so he'd have to be convinced that making the switch won't hurt his game.  If the Nike clubs perform as well as his Titleist clubs then whoever puts the most money in his pocket wins.

Pretty sure Nike can make a forged blade and their wedges are solid too.

I don't doubt their forged blades are comparable to the MB's that Rory is using now.  I was thinking more about the woods.  Titleist was just recently able to get Rory to switch from his six year old 906 fairway woods to the new 913's which would seem to indicate he's pretty particular about his woods.

golf brands cant pay the kind of money Nike can, so it wouldnt suprise me. He grew up idolizing Tiger so it would be following in his footsteps

Hmmm...always been rumours of both Nike and Titleist contracting out some club manufacture for some tour players to Miura. Let's not kid outselves, the clubs that these guys play with...all bespoke forged and finished by a SkunkWorks somewhere...

Rory could win using cheapo Ram or Top Flite clubs ... it's the indian, not the arrow.     If Nike lines his pockets, he'll go there ...

Overall I agree, but there has to be some reason why guys don't switch clubs if the arrow doesn't matter.  I'm sure Titleist tried hard to get Rory to pull out those 906 woods and until recently (913) he wouldn't.  Donald also held off making the switch to new Mizuno's for a while and some say the problems Villegas is having is related to his sponsor switch.

While Nike will pay more than everyone else out there, I would be suprised if McIlroy went there right now

Tiger is going to remain the stable star for Nike for some time to come - he is Nike Golf. Rory changed his management team as he felt that there were too many big names (Westwood, Schwartzel, Oousthuizen, etc). Horizon have GMAC, Fisher and a couple of Irish pros. I don't think that he will want to be the face of Nike while Tiger is there, and I don't think that Tiger will want him there either

Really?  Who cares?  Do any of you own stock in Nike and would stand to make more money if Rory switches?  Or, do you need some sort of validation that you play the, "best clubs on tour" just because arguably the best golfer in the world plays your brand?

Yes. I bought 100 shares in 1986 a year or so after Jordan signed with them, Now it's 1600 shares after a few splits. We got a nice bump when Tiger came onboard, and we've weathered the 'Tiger Storm' quite nicely. I'd like nothing more than for Rory to sign with Nike, and I don't think Tiger would care at all.

I was thinking the same thing although I don't own stock.

Michael Jordan was the face for a long time, at least for me. He remains a franchise all to himself 25 years later. Tiger became the face of golf  and put Nike Golf on the map. Signing Rory would be brilliant, not only for his current and future star power, but also because of the Euro and world market. Think about how many people talk about Tiger being "it" when they were growing up and now take the next generation and Rory becomes "it". It's a great move in my book if they were to pull it off.

Getting clubs for Rory? Not a problem.

nah, they play pretty much the same clubs that are available to us in the stores.

The reason for the split with Chandler had nothing to do with McIlroy wanting to be the big fish.  It had more to do with the direction McIlroy wanted his career to go, especially in relation to membership of the US Tour, with Chandler favouring his stable remaining in the Euro Tour.  Many of us on this side of the pond were concerned about Rory being in Chandler's stable anyway, because of a perceived lack of discipline within it.  The recent dropping by Westwood of his coach, Pete Cowen, because he, Cowen, was not available to Westwood often enough because by the time Westwood got around to booking time with him other players had already booked him up would suggest to me that there is something wrong with the way Chandler was managing his players, and confirms in my mind that Rory made an excellent decision.  For me, the fact that he moved to a low profile, but highly professional, agency like Horizon rather than a big international agency like IMG suggests a lack of ego rather than evidence of a massive one.

I do agree though that I can't see him going to Nike at this stage.  He's already living in the shadow of Tiger's massive contribution to the game and tournament record, and I can't imagine that it would be a good move strategically for Brand McIlroy for Rory to be going around dressed the same as Tiger, stepping further into his shadow.

Really?  The discussion is golf related, most of the discussions here have no impact on us but are still interesting to discuss.  Given all the attention to Fowler switching to Cobra last year I'd say it's a pretty big deal for Nike to have the #1 and #2 players in the world using their clubs.