LEFTY, DJ CAN PLAY U.S. OPEN
Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson are welcome to play the U.S. Open next week under a USGA decision announced Tuesday that puts the open nature of the championship over a player’s decision to play in a Saudi-funded rival league.
Mickelson and Johnson are among a dozen players in the LIV Golf Invitational this week who are exempt for the U.S. Open on June 16-19 at The Country Club outside Boston. Both have said they plan to play the third major of the year.
Among other U.S. Open players who signed up for the new league are Sergio Garcia, Louis Oosthuizen and Kevin Na.
“Regarding players who may choose to play in London this week, we simply asked ourselves this question — should a player who had earned his way into the 2022 U.S. Open, via our published field criteria, be pulled out of the field as a result of his decision to play in another event? And we ultimately decided that they should not,” the USGA said.
That the U.S. Open chose not to deny entry was not surprising. The second-oldest championship in golf takes pride in the open nature of its 156-man field. None of the other four majors has criteria in place that forces roughly 50 percent of the field to go through 36-hole qualifying.
“It’s one of the things that separates our Open from everybody else. And if you don’t believe that, watch what happened yesterday,” Mike Whan, the CEO of the USGA, said in a telephone interview.
He was referring to 36-hole qualifiers for 49 spots that were held in eight American cities and one in Canada. Three others were held previously in Texas, Japan and England.
Criticism of the new league headed by Greg Norman starts with the primary source of funding, the sovereign wealth fund in Saudi Arabia, a country with an abysmal record on human rights, most notably the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
“I realize people have strong points of view and think perhaps there should be some morality clause,” Whan said. “As I said to our team last night, with more than 9,300 entrants for the U.S. Open, if we decide what’s on their sleeve or their bag or what tour they’re playing, what we think is OK and not OK, I’m not sure that circle ever stops.
“We don’t track personal beliefs and who funds them,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we don’t care.”
The USGA said in its statement that who plays next week at Brookline should not suggest the organization supports an alternative tour or the actions and comments of a player.
“Rather, it is simply a response to whether or not the USGA views playing in an alternative event, without the consent of their home tour, an offense that should disqualify them for the US Open.”
Johnson earned a 10-year exemption from his 2016 U.S. Open victory. Mickelson has a five-year exemption from winning the PGA Championship last year. Others, such as Na and Talor Gooch, were among the top 60 in the world.
Johnson and Oosthuizen are among those who have resigned their PGA Tour memberships. Mickelson could face discipline from the tour because it did not authorize releases to play the LIV Golf Invitational. Releases are required under PGA Tour regulations.
If players are suspended by the PGA Tour, it does not affect their standing in the U.S. Open, which is run exclusively by the USGA.
‘Incredibly polarizing’ Graeme McDowell
accepts it is “incredibly polarizing” to join the Saudi-funded rebel golf tour. He even offered a reason why.
“Take the Khashoggi situation,” he said. “We all agree that’s reprehensible. Nobody is going to argue that fact.”
U.S. intelligence services said they believe the killing of the U.S.-based Saudi journalist came at the orders of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who heads the Public Investment Fund. The prince denies wrongdoing.
The Saudi sovereign wealth fund is providing the hundreds of millions of dollars in sign-on fees and prize money that is enticing players away from the established tours and jeopardizing their participation in the majors and Ryder Cup.
The tour is the latest branch of Saudi Arabia’s attempt to reposition itself as a backer of lavish sports events rather than one associated with human rights abuses, which rights groups call ‘sportswashing.’
McDowell is trying to avoid discussing the specifics of the country he is effectively working for.
“I really feel like golf is a force of good in the world — I just try to be a great role model to kids,” he said. “We are not politicians. I know you guys hate that expression, but we are really not, unfortunately. We are professional golfers.
“If Saudi Arabia wanted to use the game of golf as a way for them to get to where they want to be and they have the resources to accelerate that experience, I think we are proud to help them on that journey using the game of golf and the abilities that we have to help grow the sport and take them to where they want to be.”
How, though, McDowell was asked, is that journey helping women who are oppressed in Saudi Arabia, the LGBTQ individuals whose rights to live freely are criminalized, the migrant workers whose rights are violated, the victims of the Saudi-led bombing of Yemen, or the 81 men who were executed by the kingdom in March?
“I wish I had the ability to be able to have that conversation with you,” McDowell said. “As golfers, if we tried to cure geopolitical situations in every country in the world that we play golf in, we wouldn’t play a lot of golf. It’s a really hard question to answer.”
Notable
Rickie Fowler still has a chance to make it to the U.S. Open. Fowler missed out on qualifying by one shot. But he won a playoff in the Florida sectional and is first alternate out of that site.
The Club at Carlton Woods (Texas) is the new site for the Chevron Championship, the first LPGA Tour major of the year that is moving after 51 years at Mission Hills in the California desert.