Now that the PGA Tour has wrapped up its Tour Championship and the multimillion-dollar bonus payments have been deposited into players’ accounts, LIV Golf is about to steal a few headlines.
If this showdown between golf’s established tour and the upstart Saudi-funded league seems a bit like a heavyweight prize fight, with the combatants trading blows, the next round should keep golf fans on the edge of their seats. Consider:
Another wave of player defections from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf was expected this week, with recent Open Championship winner Cameron Smith foremost among at least six players preparing to bolt for their share of the Saudis’ sovereign wealth fund, according to a report by Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard. American Cameron Tringale announced Sunday via Twitter that he would be leaving the PGA Tour and joining LIV Golf. Smith, an Australian and No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking, would be the highest-ranked player to sign with LIV Golf. He was expected to be joined by Australia’s Marc Leishman, Chileans Joaquin Niemann and Mito Pereira and American Harold Varner III, perhaps as soon as this week’s LIV Golf event near Boston. Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, India’s Anirban Lahiri, South Korea’s Si Woo Kim and Venezuela’s Jhonattan Vegas also are weighing offers, according to multiple media reports. The defections could pose a considerable threat to the International team for next month’s Presidents Cup. The PGA Tour has banned LIV Golf defectors from playing tour-sponsored events (READ MORE).
Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have been subpoenaed regarding their recent players-only meeting that led to sweeping changes to the PGA Tour, according to a report by the New York Post’s Brian Wacker. South Florida attorney Larry Klayman wants Woods and McIlroy, who have emerged as the tour’s player leaders against the LIV Golf incursion, to testify under oath what took place behind closed doors before the BMW Championship. Klayman alleges that those discussions are “anticompetitive and violative of the antitrust laws vis a vis the LIV Golf Tour and its players.” Klayman recently filed a $750 million defamation lawsuit against commentator Brandel Chamblee and Golf Channel on behalf of LIV Golf player Patrick Reed (READ MORE).
The DP World Tour could be facing an awkward incursion at its flagship event next week. Nineteen LIV golfers were set to crash the tour’s annual end-of-summer party at the BMW Championship near tour headquarters in England, according to a report by Golf Digest’s Ryan Herrington. The DP World Tour has differed from the PGA Tour and not banned LIV Golf defectors but rather issued an escalating series of fines and suspensions. According to the field list for the Sept. 8-11 BMW PGA at Wentworth Club, Americans Talor Gooch, Jason Kokrak and Patrick Reed plus England’s Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood are among the LIV Golf players who are entered (READ MORE).
Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point will host a Saudi-sponsored women’s tournament as former President Donald Trump’s family business and Saudi Arabia deepen their golf ties. The Aramco Team Series, a Saudi-funded event on the Ladies European Tour, will be played Oct. 13-15 at the Trump-managed links course in the Bronx borough, The New York Times reported. The state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Aramco, sponsors eight team events and another tournament on the LET’s 2022 schedule. The Saudi-funded LIV Golf tour visited Trump National Bedminster this summer and will conclude its inaugural season Oct. 27-30 at Trump National Doral in Florida (READ MORE).
Will Zalatoris, the rising American star who won the PGA Tour’s playoff opener three weeks ago in Memphis, Tennessee, will not compete in next month’s Presidents Cup matches because of ongoing back pain.
Zalatoris, 26, withdrew during the third round of the BMW Championship on Aug. 20, citing a back injury, six days after he won the FedEx St. Jude Championship for his first tour title. On Aug. 30, he withdrew from the season-ending Tour Championship, with his management team disclosing that Zalatoris had two herniated discs and that he would not be able to play the biennial Presidents Cup matches on Sept. 22-25 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina (READ MORE).
The PGA Tour has expanded the field for its Sentry Tournament of Champions to include a select number of non-winners.
In addition to the winners of tour events from the previous year, the field will include the top 30 players from the FedEx Cup playoffs points list who also qualify for the tour’s annual season finale.
This year, for example, eight more players have earned a trip to Hawaii’s Kapalua Resort in early January via the season standings without having won: Cameron Young, Collin Morikawa, Adam Scott, Scott Stallings, Corey Conners, Brian Harman, Aaron Wise and Sahith Theegala.
Why the change? The tour didn’t say in its news release announcing that Sentry Insurance has extended its sponsorship through 2035, but there were nine multiple-tournament winners during the past season, and some other winners have defected to LIV Golf, earning suspensions from the tour and thus dramatically trimming the Kapalua field under the former winners-only format (READ MORE). The PGA Tour had expanded the field at Kapalua in 2021 to include Tour Championship qualifiers to boost the field because of pandemic tournament cancellations.
Austin Greaser, Gordon Sargent and Michael Thorbjornsen, all of whom are ranked among the top six amateurs in the world, will compose the U.S. team for this week’s World Amateur Team Championship, the USGA announced.
Greaser, 20, of Vandalia, Ohio, and a senior at North Carolina, was runner-up in the 2021 U.S. Amateur and won the recent Western Amateur. Sargent, 19, of Birmingham, Alabama, won the 2022 NCAA title as a freshman at Vanderbilt. Thorbjornsen, 20, of Wellesley, Massachusetts, and a junior at Stanford, won the 2021 Western Amateur and the 2018 U.S. Junior. They rank Nos. 4-6, respectively, in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.
The WATC, also known as the Eisenhower Trophy, will be played Aug. 31-Sept. 3 at Le Golf National’s Albatros course and Le Golf de Saint-Nom-le-Breteche’s Red course in the suburbs west of Paris. The format for the four-day, 72-hole event will be stroke play, with the low two scores on each three-man team counting daily. Because of COVID-19, the most recent WATC was played in 2018, when Denmark edged the U.S. by one stroke for the title (READ MORE).
TAP-INS
Julian Robertson, an American billionaire investor and philanthropist who helped develop New Zealand into a golf destination, died in New York of heart complications, The New Zealand Herald reported. He was 90. Robertson, who launched the Tiger Management Fund in 1980, fell in love with New Zealand during a visit more than 40 years ago. In 1995, he bought a sheep farm near Maturi Bay on the north end of the archipelago and developed the property into Kauri Cliffs. His family’s resort portfolio also includes Cape Kidnappers (READ MORE).
Callaway Golf will change its company name to Topgolf Callaway Brands Corp. to reflect the 2021 merger with the fast-growing golf-entertainment entity, the company announced (READ MORE).
Japan’s Keita Nakajima repeated as winner of the McCormack Medal as the top men’s player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, the WAGR announced Aug. 24. Nakajima, 22, has been No. 1 in the WAGR for a record 83 weeks, including 70 in a row. With the medal, Nakajima received exemptions into the U.S. Open and Open Championship next year (READ MORE).
The USGA announced three future sites for the U.S. Senior Women’s Open: 2024 at Fox Chapel Golf Club in Pittsburgh; 2025 at San Diego Country Club in Chula Vista, California; and 2027 at Tacoma Country and Golf Club in Lakewood, Washington (READ MORE).
The advanced tee-time ballot for the Old Course at St. Andrews has returned for 2023 after the coronavirus pandemic limited travel to the home of golf in Scotland. On the heels of the 150th Open this summer at St. Andrews, the Private Advanced Tee Time ballot will offer more than 1,000 slots and be open through Sept. 7. For information, click here.
Lucy Li, who as an 11-year-old in 2014 became the youngest qualifier for the U.S. Women’s Open, has clinched an exempt spot on the LPGA Tour for 2023, the tour announced. Li, 19, of Redwood Shores, California, is the first player of the season to secure a promotion via the Epson Tour. In her third season on the developmental tour, Li has won twice and posted four other top-10 results in 11 starts. The rest of the 10 graduates will be decided via the money list through the final 1½ months of the season (READ MORE).
The first 11 players for each Junior Presidents Cup team have been announced, according to the AJGA. The U.S. and International teams will identify the final player for their 12-member squads that will compete Sept. 18-20 at Myers Park Country Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, before the Presidents Cup matches on Sept. 22-25 at nearby Quail Hollow Club (READ MORE).
The DP World Tour will launch its eTour competition on Aug. 31 in a deal with World Golf Tour by Topgolf and DreamHack Sports Games. The virtual competition will be played on Wolf Creek Golf Course in Mesquite, Nevada, and conclude on Nov. 30 (READ MORE).
PopStroke, the Tiger Woods-inspired golf entertainment center, will hold its inaugural PopStroke Tour Championship putting competition Oct. 26-28 at its Sarasota, Florida, location, the company announced. The tournament will feature team and individual competitions, with a total purse of $125,000 (READ MORE / VIDEO).
Staff and Wire Reports