Greg Norman, who has run afoul of golf’s establishment as the front man for a Saudi-backed upstart tour, has found that his golf résumé doesn’t open as many doors as it once did.
Norman, 67, a two-time Open champion, said Friday that he had applied for a comeback at the ancestral “home of golf” during this year’s 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews. One day later, the R&A rejected the appeal for a special exemption, according to Australian Golf Digest.
In a statement, the R&A said: “The entry terms and conditions for the Open stipulate that a champion must be aged 60 or under or have won the championship in the previous 10 years to be exempt from qualifying. That remains the case for the 150th Open, and we have no plans for any additional exemptions.”
Norman, who won the Claret Jug in 1986 and 1993, has not competed in a tournament that offered world-ranking points since the 2012 Australian PGA. He still could attempt to qualify for the Open.
There is precedent for the R&A to extend an invitation to a past champion who falls outside of its special-exemption criteria. Tom Watson, a five-time Open winner, was granted a spot at age 65 in the 2015 Open at St. Andrews (READ MORE).
John Daly II has followed his father into the family business in more ways than one.
Daly, a freshman golfer at Arkansas, signed a name, image and likeness (NIL) deal with Hooters. The restaurant chain, known more for its scantily clad, busty waitresses than for its haute cuisine, long has been associated with the elder Daly, a two-time major champion after his college days at Arkansas in 1984-87. Since 1997, Daly has set up shop outside of the Hooters in Augusta, Georgia, during Masters week and hawked merchandise.
Little John, as the son is called, has played only one tournament for Arkansas this season. Competing as an individual at the Hogs’ Blessings Collegiate Invitational, Daly finished 49th among 52 players.
“Hooters is the ideal place for me to go and unwind after a long day on the course or in the classroom, so I am honored to be chosen as an ambassador for the iconic brand,” Daly II said in a statement. “I have seen my father's great relationship with Hooters over the years, and I am proud to continue my family's association with this iconic brand.”
The young Daly, 18, will have to be content to unwind with a soft drink, though. The drinking age in Arkansas is 21.
The elder Daly took to Twitter to applaud his son’s joining “my Hooters family.”
The father-son Daly duo won the 2021 PNC Challenge with a tournament-record 27-under-par score for the 36-hole scramble, edging Tiger Woods and his son, Charlie, by two strokes.
Steph Curry, the NBA sharpshooter and avid golfer, has launched another golf initiative with big goals.
Curry announced on YouTube that he will fully fund the Underrated Golf Tour to help provide opportunities for “underrepresented” junior golfers. He will pay for travel, lodging and meals for boys and girls ages 12-18. The top players on the five-event tour, to be held in conjunction with the AJGA, will compete for the season-ending Curry Cup on Aug. 28-30 at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.
“Less than 2 percent of golfers are people of color,” Curry said in the video message announcing the tour, “so our tour provides a platform for equity, access and opportunity for those who can’t get their big break but also want to play head-to-head with the current best players on the AJGA.”
In 2019, Curry made a reported seven-figure donation to fund the men’s and women’s golf programs at Howard University, a historically Black school in Washington, for six years. He since has helped Howard raise more than $3 million to help support its golf endowment. As the NBA’s highest-paid player, Curry, 34, made a reported $45.78 million this season with the Golden State Warriors (VIDEO).
Mission Hills, the star-studded desert home for the LPGA and celebrities for the past half-century, will host big-time golf next year, after all.
The PGA Tour Champions will play the inaugural Galleri Classic on March 24-26 at Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage, California, officials announced.
Mission Hills had been home to the LPGA for the past 50 years, since the late entertainer Dinah Shore lent her name and her social influence to a tournament that dated to 1972. However, the recent Chevron Championship, the LPGA’s first major championship of the season, ended the women’s association with Mission Hills.
The Coachella Valley and Palm Springs have played host to the PGA Tour annually since 1960 in an event associated for years with the late entertainer Bob Hope and recently named the American Express. The senior tour last played in the area in 1997 with the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf at PGA West in La Quinta (READ MORE).
Pebble Beach will become the third anchor site for the U.S. Open in a deal that will bring 10 USGA championships to the California coastal resort.
Pebble Beach Golf Links will be the site of four U.S. Opens (2027, 2032, 2037 and 2044) and four U.S. Women’s Opens (2023, 2035, 2040 and 2048), and the iconic Monterey Peninsula resort’s Spyglass Hill Golf Course will play host to the first back-to-back U.S. Senior Open and U.S. Senior Women’s Open, in 2030.
Pebble Beach joins Pinehurst and Oakmont as pillars on the USGA’s regular rotation to host the men’s and women’s national championships. Pebble Beach, which opened in 1919 and first hosted the USGA with the 1929 U.S. Amateur, has been the site of some of the most memorable U.S. Opens, including Tom Watson’s chip-in at No. 17 en route to beating Jack Nicklaus in 1982 and Tiger Woods’ record 15-stroke victory in 2000 (READ MORE).
Members of the DP World Tour have received an e-mail warning them not to compete on the upstart LIV Golf Invitational Series or risk harming their home circuit, according to a report by James Corrigan in London’s The Telegraph newspaper, which claims to have seen the e-mail.
The Saudi-backed tour, which is being led by two-time Open champion Greg Norman, has struggled to attract the game’s top players and recently downshifted to target top amateurs for its proposed launch in June in England. Total prize money for the eight-tournament series is listed as $255 million. The richest event on the DP World Tour, the season-ending championship, will offer a $10 million purse. Even the PGA Tour’s biggest event, the $20 million Players Championship, falls short of the LIV Series’ average prize fund.
“Conflicting events, regardless of how attractive they might appear to you personally, potentially compromise our efforts in these areas and could significantly hurt your tour in both the short and long term,” DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley wrote in the e-mail. “Please, therefore, continue to bear this bigger picture in mind, particularly considering some of these conflicting events in 2022 are scheduled directly opposite some of our most prestigious ‘heritage events,’ including the Horizon Irish Open, the DS Automobiles Italian Open and the Acciona Open de España – three national Opens which combined have more than 300 years of history.”
Dual members of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour face an April 25 deadline to apply for a waiver to compete on the LIV Series.
Europeans Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood reportedly have been targeted for recruitment by the rival series. Virtually all of the top Americans and most of the leaders in the world ranking have shunned the Norman-led tour (READ MORE).
American Robert Garrigus, 44, a one-time PGA Tour winner who stood No. 1,043 in the world entering the recent Zurich Classic, reportedly will seek a waiver from the PGA Tour to join the LIV Series. The news was reported first by Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch, who cited sources, and then confirmed by Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard, who spoke with Garrigus.
TAP-INS
ESPN premiered the film “Shark” as part of its “30 for 30” series on April 19 and made the one-hour documentary, which includes Greg Norman watching his epic collapse at the 1986 Masters, available to stream for subscribers on ESPN+ (READ MORE).
Anna Davis, the recent winner of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, accepted a sponsor exemption to play in the LPGA’s inaugural Palos Verdes Championship, on April 28-May 1 at Palos Verdes Golf Club in Palos Verdes Estates, California. Davis, 16, a high school sophomore from Spring Valley, California, will be making her LPGA debut (READ MORE).
South Africa’s Trevor Immelman, captain of the Presidents Cup International team, announced four assistants for this year’s matches: South Korea’s K.J. Choi, Australia’s Geoff Ogilvy, Colombia’s Camilo Villegas and Canada’s Mike Weir. The matches will be played Sept. 22-25 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina (READ MORE).
The next installment of “The Match” will feature four NFL quarterbacks – Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers vs. Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen – in a 12-hole exhibition June 1 at Wynn Las Vegas, TNT Sports announced. Coverage will begin at 6:30 p.m. EDT on TNT (READ MORE).
The Arnold Palmer Cup finalized its 12-person men’s and women’s teams for the annual matches involving U.S. and International collegians. The matches will be played July 1-3 at Golf Club de Genève in Switzerland (READ MORE).
ClubCorp, which owns or operates 161 golf clubs and another 45 sports-themed facilities, has changed its name to Invited, the Dallas-based hospitality company announced (READ MORE).
The DP World Tour announced the return of Qualifying School for the first time since 2019. The three stages will feature six new courses, including a maiden visit to Australia. In a new three-year deal, the final stage will return to Infinitum, the site of last week's ISPS Handa Championship in Spain (READ MORE).
Scotland’s Hannah Darling and England’s Caley McGinty, who stand 10th and 11th, respectively, in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking, earned automatic spots on Great Britain and Ireland’s team for the 2022 Curtis Cup. GB&I captain Elaine Radcliffe is expected to complete her eight-person squad this week. The U.S. team was finalized April 15 for the June 10-12 matches at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pennsylvania.
Staff and Wire Reports