LIV Golf’s menace to the PGA Tour is important sufficient that two of the sport’s greatest stars flew to Delaware on their very own on Tuesday to satisfy with fellow gamers upfront of this week’s BMW Championship at Wilmington Nation Membership.
Tiger Woods and Rickie Fowler touched down in Woods’ personal jet shortly after 3 p.m. Each gamers — neither of whom certified for this week’s FedEx Cup Playoffs occasion — confirmed as much as rally assist for the PGA Tour.
There have been two conferences on the day, together with a beforehand scheduled one involving the Tour’s Participant Advisory Council that passed off at 3 p.m., which Woods was not in attendance for and the place LIV Golf was not mentioned, a member of the PAC who was in attendance informed The Submit. It lasted round 90 minutes and concerned traditional end-of-year enterprise with little drama, a supply mentioned.
The second assembly passed off within the early night off-site and did contain Woods and Fowler, nonetheless, in addition to a lot of the sport’s different stars — together with Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas, amongst others who haven’t bolted for LIV, sources confirmed to The Submit.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan was additionally scheduled to satisfy with gamers in one other assembly on Wednesday.
Tuesday’s assembly with Woods and others got here on the heels of a federal decide final week ruling in opposition to three LIV gamers — Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford — who had been looking for a short lived restraining order to compete within the playoffs. It additionally passed off within the wake of the information final week that British Open champ Cameron Smith — who withdrew from this week’s BMW with a sore hip — has additionally reportedly signed on with LIV and can make his debut there after the PGA Tour season concludes later this month.
Although particulars from the assembly had but to emerge as of early Tuesday night, Woods has been staunchly against LIV and spoke out in opposition to the Saudi-backed outfit throughout final month’s British Open.
“I disagree with it,” Woods mentioned at St. Andrews. “I feel that what they’ve performed is that they’ve turned their again on what has allowed them to get to this place.
“Some gamers have by no means obtained an opportunity to even expertise it — they’ve gone proper from the newbie ranks proper into that group and by no means actually obtained an opportunity to play out right here and what it feels wish to play a Tour schedule or to play in some large occasions. And who is aware of what’s going to occur within the close to future with world rating factors, the standards for getting into main championships? The governing our bodies are going to should determine that out. A few of these gamers might not ever get an opportunity to play in main championships. … That, to me, I simply don’t perceive it.”
LIV Golf has utilized with the Official World Golf Rating for its occasions to obtain factors, however that course of is normally a protracted one — a minimum of a yr, if no more.
Nonetheless, LIV — which is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund (valued at greater than $600 billion) and already slated to extend from eight tournaments this yr to 14 in 2023 — isn’t going away anytime quickly. Already, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, amongst others, have ditched the PGA Tour for LIV regardless of being suspended indefinitely by the extra established tour and nonetheless extra gamers are anticipated to defect after the Tour season concludes.
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