How to bridge PGA Tour, LIV divide? Padraig Harrington has clever solution
Padraig Harrington and Jon Rahm walk in a fairway during the 2022 Masters.
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Golf legends? They’re golf fans, too. Which makes them like you. They want the best players in the world to play more often than just a few times a year.
Who are they? This week: Luke Donald and Padraig Harrington, playing in the Irish Open and weighing in on the fatigue they feel with the current state of things in men’s pro golf.
Donald, the European Ryder Cup captain, has a few players (Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton) from his victorious 2023 team appealing sanctions to earn their way into DP World Tour events to ensure they can be picked next year. “I think we are all being very patient right now,” Donald said Thursday. “It’s 15 months since Yasir and Jay Monahan got together. It’s been frustrating I think for a lot of the players to see how slow everything has been going, and I’m sure it’s been frustrating for Jon [Rahm] as well.”
Why? Because Rahm earns a suspension and a fine for every LIV Golf event he plays while he’s still a member of the DPWT. Nine months after he committed to LIV Golf and 15 months after the PGA Tour and the Saudi PIF signed a framework agreement, Rahm is not exactly experiencing the best of both worlds. That doesn’t just irk him; it bothers Padraig Harrington, too.
The Irishman and recent inductee to the World Golf Hall of Fame is a stickler for the rules — he believes Rahm needs to do what he can to support the DP World Tour — but he also wants Rahm on Europe’s Ryder Cup team in one year’s time, no matter what. During what continue to be tense times, Harrington has carved out a solution.
“Ideally for me I would suggest that every PGA Tour and European Tour event should have four invites for LIV players,” Harrington began. “And every LIV event should have four invites for an International team. That way we have enough crossover that we can get Jon Rahm to play the European Tour and we get Abraham Ancer to play the Mexican Open. If four PGA Tour guys come over, it’s not like they are going to be welcomed with open arms, so that creates buzz at their events.”
At the moment, no LIV golfers are allowed to play PGA Tour events. They are not allowed to play on a sponsor’s exemption, or enter via a Monday qualifier. Likewise, there’s no room for PGA Tour players to squeeze into LIV’s 54-player team tournaments.
Negotiations to resolve the fissure in the men’s game are ongoing, and one of the primary topics that needs solving is pathways for some LIV golfers to return to the status quo they left behind. Harrington views some immediate cross-pollination as a hype-building move.
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“If we had four LIV players this week,” Harrington continued, “they would be focused on them, and people would be watching it. Some people would be wanting them to do well, and some people would be wanting them to do badly. But that would create a bit of a buzz; and vice versa, if four PGA Tour players or four international players turned up at a LIV event, they wouldn’t want that team winning, they wouldn’t want the outsiders, so that creates a bit of a buzz for them.”
It’s already become clear that getting the best LIV and PGA Tour players competing against each other creates buzz. The Jon Rahm-Brooks Koepka 2023 Masters duel saw TV ratings clock in as the best since 2018. This year’s U.S. Open Sunday clash between Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau rated as the best East Coast U.S. Open in more than a decade.
“The majors have never been better because of those rivalries, so why couldn’t we have that this week?” Harrington said. “Why couldn’t we have a few guys — like, I’m sure Tyrrell playing last week created a great buzz, two weeks ago at the British Masters. There will be a lot of home fans wanting him to do well and then there’s plenty of people that didn’t want him to do well. In the right context, that’s good.”
The way he talks about it, Harrington seems to view this moment of angst as an opportunity. He’s given it plenty of thought, been asked about it plenty of times, but knows he’s not in charge.
“That’s my solution,” Harrington said, before adding an important qualifier. “I’m not sitting at the top table. That’s why I’m sitting in the media center telling you my solution.”
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