Our legacy can’t be bought or sold, say PGA Tour as fightback begins
THE PGA Tour crashed the opening day of the Saudi breakaway series yesterday by suspending their defectors in a major escalation of golf’s civil war. In an explosive letter to PGA members, sent within half an hour of the first tee shots at Centurion Club, Tour commissioner Jay Monahan declared that 17 players, including Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Graeme McDowell and Sergio Garcia, would be banned from their events indefinitely. Although the situation around their participation in future majors remains undecided, the PGA Tour’s sanctions are a line in the sand between golf’s established factions and the stars who have cashed in by joining the LIV Invitational Series. The same punishment will apply to players who enter future LIV competitions, with Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed expected to join in the coming weeks. LIV responded by calling the Tour ‘vindictive’. Monahan’s letter said: ‘Participation in the Saudi Golf League/LIV Golf event is in violation of our tournament regulations.
These players have made their choice for their own financial-based reasons. I am certain our fans and partners — who are surely tired of all this talk of money, money and more money — will continue to be entertained and compelled by the worldclass competition you display each and every week, where there are true consequences for every shot you take and your rightful place in history whenever you reach that elusive winner’s circle. ‘(The Tour’s)
collective legacy can’t be bought or sold.’ Poulter plans to appeal against the PGA’s ruling. He said last night: ‘I will appeal for sure if that’s exactly what it says (in the PGA letter)... I am playing the game I love and they’re going to take that opportunity away. It’s disappointing.’ A number of players — including Johnson, Martin Kaymer, McDowell, Garcia, Branden Grace, Louis Oosthuizen, Kevin Na, Charl Schwartzel and Westwood — had moved to nullify the impact of the expected sanctions by resigning their PGA Tour membership in advance of the LIV opener at Centurion. Making up the 17 banned players were Talor Gooch, Matt Jones, Andy Ogletree, Turk Pettit, Hudson Swafford and Peter Uihlein, who are among the 48 playing for an obscene prize pot of $25million. The LIV series led by Greg Norman hit out with a statement that read: ‘The announcement by the PGA Tour is vindictive and it deepens the divide between the Tour and its members .... This certainly is not the last word on this topic.’