LIV threat raises stakes for tours

THE second LIV Golf event is under way, this time in the United States, and the field is considerably stronger than for the first one.

With Americans Bryson DeChambeau, right, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed the latest to fall for the oil money, the direction of travel will ring alarm bells for the established tours. The announcement that the PGA Tour are to up their stake in the DP World Tour to 40 per cent shows just how rattled they are. In the attempt to fight off the breakaway league, do not be surprised if they go the whole hog and merge into a single entity run out of Florida. The warning from former Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington that LIV Golf represents an existential threat to the DP World Tour may well be right – only not in the way he might have imagined.