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It didn’t take long for word of Sergio Garcia’s WD to reach the disciplinary office at the DP World Tour. Perhaps because it didn’t have to travel very far.

Wentworth, the annual host of last weekend’s BMW PGA Championship, doubles as the worldwide headquarters for golf’s second-biggest tour. Meaning that when Garcia elected to pack things up and leave town for Texas after an opening-round 76 last Thursday, the players weren’t the only ones who noticed his absence.

Now, that decision could be cause for punishment levied against the former Masters champ. According to a report from ESPN, the DP World Tour is considering disciplinary action against Garcia for failing to provide a reason for his withdrawal from the event.

According to the DP World Tour handbook, players are forbidden from withdrawing from events with the exception of “emergency reasons or medical circumstances deemed reasonable by the tournament director.” The tour, according to the report, has not received any reasoning for Garcia’s WD.

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Garcia has 21 days from the time of his withdrawal to provide written proof of medical circumstances causing the WD. Should the tour find him in violation of its rules, Garcia would face a fine in line with its general regulations.

Of course, Garcia has already been the subject of disciplinary action from the DP World Tour this year. Earlier this summer, the tour fined Garcia and 15 other golfers £100,000, or around $125,000, for their decision to join LIV Golf. The tour also suspended the group from the Scottish Open, an event it co-sanctions with the PGA Tour.

Garcia’s WD came at a time of increased tensions between LIV and PGA Tour players, who competed in the same field at a non-major for the first time at the BMW PGA. When, on Saturday, Garcia was spotted on the sidelines of the Texas-Alabama football game, his decision to leave the event grew even more contentious. Sky Sports’ Jamie Weir reported that Jon Rahm was particularly upset by Garcia’s decision, “as his good friend Alfredo García-Heredia was first reserve.” In other words, Garcia’s flippant WD cost García-Heredia a spot in the field.

Ultimately, Shane Lowry won the BMW PGA, fending off late charges by both PGA Tour stalwarts (Rahm and Rory McIlroy finished T2) and LIV Golfers (Talor Gooch and Patrick Reed finished 4th and 5th, respectively). “I wanted to win for myself first and foremost, but for everyone that has stayed loyal to this tour,” Lowry said after the victory. “I really feel this is one for the good guys.”

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Turns out Scottie Scheffler wasn’t the only former Masters Champion taking in the Alabama-Texas college football game Saturday.

While Scheffler was surprised on the set of ESPN’s College GameDay pregame show with his PGA Tour Player of the Year award, Sergio Garcia and his wife Angela Atkins were later seen during the FOX broadcast of the game chatting with Scheffler and his wife Meredith on the sideline.

This is typically the time of year we start to see pros popping up on college football sidelines, especially as we’re in the middle of the PGA Tour’s “offseason.”

Only Garcia was playing at the BMW PGA Championship in England about 48 hours ago.

Play was suspended at the DP World Tour’s flagship event Thursday afternoon in the wake of the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Play was also suspended for all of Friday before resuming Saturday and the event being shortened to 54 holes.

Garcia, one of several LIV Golf pros controversially in the field for this weeks event, withdrew following an opening round 76 at Wentworth and did not give a reason. He threatened to resign his membership from the DP World Tour over the summer after joining LIV Golf, before ultimately choosing to maintain membership.

Golfers committed to the upstart, Saudi-backed LIV Golf are able to play on the DP World Tour while an appeal on the suspensions handed down by CEO Keith Pelley works its way through the UK court system.

Most, except perhaps Ian Poulter, have kept a relatively low profile on the tour, but 18 were originally entered in the field this week at Wentworth.

Garcia may not be an alumnus of the University of Texas as Scheffler is, but he does still have connections to the Longhorns. Garcia owns a home in Austin with his wife, Angela Atkins, who played golf at UT for two seasons and is the daughter of former Longhorns quarterback Marty Atkins.

Given how controversial Garcia’s appearance at Wentworth was in the first place, it’s interesting to note how quickly plans for his GameDay appearance came together when play was suspended Thursday afternoon.

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The post Could LIV golfers qualify for Team Europe in the Ryder Cup? We found out more today appeared first on Golf.

The post Could LIV golfers qualify for Team Europe in the Ryder Cup? We found out more today appeared first on Golf.

The first indications of what the 2023 Ryder Cup will look like have started to take shape as Europe announced important changes to its qualification process Tuesday. 

For the 2023 Cup, captain Luke Donald will make SIX captain’s picks, double what previous captain Padraig Harrington was allotted in 2021. The European team will feature six automatic qualifiers in addition to those six picks via its long-used European Points and World Points lists.

The move to six captain’s picks was first made by Steve Stricker during the 2021 Cup for the USA, which was widely praised as it helped result in a record-setting 19-9 victory for the Americans at Whistling Straits. The U.S. will maintain the same system with the upcoming 2022 Presidents Cup, captained by Davis Love III.

“These changes to the qualification process for Team Europe follow in-depth analysis with the team at Ryder Cup Europe and with Thomas [Bjorn] and Edoardo [Molinari],” Donald said in a press release. “I’m delighted that when we presented our thoughts to the Tournament Committee, they were 100 percent behind them.”

The decision comes amid great consternation over who will be involved with Europe, considering the recent launch of LIV Golf. It was just last month that Henrik Stenson was the European captain but lost his position with the team when he signed with the upstart league. Donald assumed the post just 12 days later, saying, “Some of my best experiences in golf have been in the Ryder Cup and I would not swap those for anything.”

A major question follows if LIV golfers will be able to qualify for the team. It can be reasonably expected that, at this moment, LIV golfers will not earn a captain’s pick from Donald. But can they still qualify on points? There is no announced stipulation barring them from that path onto the team.

At next week’s BMW Championship, where Ryder Cup qualifying begins, there will be 18 LIV golfers in the field. If, say, Sergio Garcia wins that event, it will go a long way to his qualifying for the 2023 Ryder Cup. The same goes for major championships in 2023, which will award the most points (6,000), followed by the Rolex Series events, which are played on the DP World Tour. But European Points will only be awarded to active DP World Tour members who maintain their membership, and World Points (distributed via the World Golf Ranking) will not be awarded to events held during the same week as a Rolex Series event. (In other words, LIV Golf’s schedule of events would want to be wary of the DP World Tour’s biggest events as well.)

But yes, on paper, a high-performing LIV golfer who is also a DP World Tour member, hails from Europe and plays well in Rolex Series events and major championships will seemingly have a chance to qualify for the Ryder Cup team. There is zero specific wording in Team Europe’s press release that bans LIV golfers from qualifying. That said, the competition for those spots has always been fierce, and now there are just fewer spots to go around.

The top three players on the European Points list in 2021 were Jon Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood and Tyrrell Hatton, who each played very well on the DP World Tour that summer. The top three others on the World Points list were Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland and Paul Casey. Since that World Points list is compiled via world ranking points, mostly dominated by PGA Tour events, which LIV golfers are suspended from playing, it is highly unlikely a LIV golfer would qualify via the World Points list.

More plainly, for a LIV golfer to qualify automatically, they’d need to be one of the three best European players in DP World Tour events and major championships. But many of them are running out of time. Their world world golf rankings continue to decay over time by not competing on a tour that awards them. The Masters tournament awards lifetime exemptions for its past champions, many of which are LIV golfers. But the PGA Championship, U.S. Open and British Open entry qualifications are not as favorable.

To continue the aforementioned example, could Sergio Garcia outperform Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, Matt Fitzpatrick and many other of the best European pros in the world in specific events that reward qualification points, littered across a schedule that also includes double-digit LIV golf events? Of course it’s possible, but rather unlikely. 

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The post ‘It was frustration:’ Sergio Garcia explains bizarre episode with rules official at Wells Fargo appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘It was frustration:’ Sergio Garcia explains bizarre episode with rules official at Wells Fargo appeared first on Golf.

It was only a few months ago when Sergio Garcia was making his displeasure with the PGA Tour known to rules officials and not in the courts.

In an interview with ESPN’s Michael Collins, Garcia looked back on the moment from the first round of May’s Wells Fargo Championship, when he went on an expletive-laden rant caught on PGA Tour Live microphones.

“It was frustration,” Garcia said. “Mainly for the way the official acted towards me. He didn’t wanna hear anything that I had to say. He didn’t wanna hear what I was trying to explain to him.”

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Garcia was searching for his ball on the 10th hole after he hooked his tee shot on the par-5 left, near a stream. He wanted to look for his ball on the other side of the stream, which was still in the penalty area, but he first had to find a way to cross the stream. The question became when would Garcia’s three minutes to find his ball begin?

According to the official on the hole at the time, it started before he crossed the stream, and thus when Garcia found his ball, the official alerted him it had already taken him four minutes to find it. That’s when things got weird.

After a back and forth between the official and Garcia, the Spaniard uttered his now infamous, “I can’t wait to leave this tour” line.

“I can’t wait to get out of here, my friend,” Garcia said, which we now of course know he meant he was joining the LIV Golf circuit the next month. “Just a couple more weeks and I won’t have to deal with you anymore.” 

Garcia was actually regretful about that line when talking to Collins.

“It was frustrating and that came out,” Garcia said. “I probably should have held it [in] if I could have but in the heat of the moment I guess sometimes you can’t help it.”

The crazier thing was, Garcia had the right to be upset. The PGA Tour later clarified Garcia was given an improper ruling. He should have been allowed to play his ball as his time to find the ball didn’t start until he had crossed the stream.

“They actually told me that, yes, when I started looking for the ball, I found [it] within 2 minutes,” Garcia told Collins. “So I even had a minute to spare. I think the frustration was the talks about LIV and thinking about going. Then that happened and in that moment you feel like you’re getting a little bit screwed.”

Garcia eventually took a drop, hit an iron into the fairway for his third, and got up and down from 137 yards for an eventful par.

“When I found the ball I could actually hit it about 160 yards up the fairway,” Garcia said. “Maybe I could have had the possibility of making a birdie or an easy par. But now I have to drop 60 yards back, hit a 3-iron and pitching wedge into a green, so it wasn’t easy to make a 5 [par] and it wasn’t easy to make a 6 [bogey].”

And for what it’s worth, Garcia said he and the official cleared the air after the round.

“Thankfully for me, at the end of the round [the official] came and apologized,” he said.

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The post ‘Everybody, it feels like, is against us’: LIV tension surfacing at Open Championship appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘Everybody, it feels like, is against us’: LIV tension surfacing at Open Championship appeared first on Golf.

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — There are two-dozen LIV Golf players in the field at the 150th Open Championship. Dustin Johnson is here; in fact, for a brief while Friday afternoon, he was your outright leader, at nine under par. Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka and Sergio Garcia are here, too. Same goes for Poults, Westy and Blandy. To say they’ve been treated like outcasts at the Old Course, in the shadows of the imposing Royal & Ancient clubhouse, would be an overstatement. But they haven’t exactly been embraced with open arms, either.

Greg Norman, LIV’s vocal leader and proud owner of two Claret Jugs, was told by the R&A to stay home this week. Mickelson, an Open winner in 2013, was not officially blacklisted from the past-champion festivities on Monday and Tuesday, but he was strongly encouraged not to attend. On the 1st tee on Thursday, Poulter heard something you virtually never hear from the reserved and respectful Open galleries: boos.      

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Nary a single LIV player — not Phil, nor DJ, nor King Louis, a past Open winner at the Old Course — was invited into the media center to sit for a pre-tournament press conference. None were assigned what might be described as a marquee tee time, either. Mickelson was in the fifth group out on Thursday with Lucas Herbert and Kurt Kitayama. Patrick Reed, who this week has LIV branding on his shirt sleeve, collar and hat, went off with Tom Hoge and JooHyung Kim. Westwood, historically a crowd favorite at the Open, played with J.T. Poston and Stephen Dodd. Garcia, Bland and Oosthuizen were all grouped with amateurs.

But wait, there’s more! When R&A chief Martin Slumbers met with the media Wednesday, he required no prompting from reporters to reveal his feelings about the LIV movement. Near the top of his opening remarks, Slumbers said, “Before we get the press conference underway, I would like to briefly address a topic which is no doubt on most of your minds.” He wasn’t talking about Princess Anne’s plans to attend the Open.

Without mentioning LIV by name, Slumbers went on to say of LIV’s first two events, “I believe the model we’ve seen at Centurion and Pumpkin Ridge is not in the best long-term interests of the sport as a whole and is entirely driven by money. We believe it undermines the merit-based culture and the spirit of open competition that makes golf so special. I would also like to say that in my opinion the continued commentary that this is about growing the game is just not credible and if anything, is harming the perception of our sport which we are working so hard to improve.”

Whether the R&A’s cold shoulder — and the steady drumbeat of LIV-related questions in player press conferences — has affected LIV pros is hard to say. But if the leaderboard through two rounds is any indication, at least some of them appear undaunted. Among the LIV’ers in the red, and in the hunt, are DJ (nine under), Talor Gooch (seven under), Abraham Ancer (five under), Poulter and Westwood (both four under).

After his second-round 69, Gooch was asked whether LIV players have been galvanized by the R&A’s chilly reception.  

“Yeah, for sure,” he said. “Everybody, it feels like, is against us, and that’s OK. Like you said, it’s kind of banded us together, I think.”

Band of LIV brothers.

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You could see those cliques in action in practice rounds earlier this week. Garcia played with Ancer. Poulter and Bland joined Sam Horsfield. Mickelson set out with fellow LIV’ers Garcia, Bernd Wiesberger and LIV newbie Paul Casey. There’s no designated LIV section in player dining (that we know of) but you can’t help but wonder if that’s coming next.

PGA Tour loyalists like Justin Thomas and Billy Horschel have spoken of feeling betrayed by players who have not been forthright about the reasons why they’ve jumped ship for LIV (i.e., money). But it’s unclear whether the turmoil has actually uprooted personal relationships.

At the Scottish Open last week, Thomas said about being grouped with LIV players: “If I know all four of them, then it will be fine. It will be easy. But even if I don’t, I don’t necessarily think we’re going to be having any gamesmanship or needling each other.”  

Padraig Harrington has said he won’t let the LIV tension spoil his friendships, likening the friction to something you might encounter with extended family at Thanksgiving. “You could be a Republican, they could be a Democrat,” he said a couple of weeks ago. “But you’re friends at that particular time, and maybe politics isn’t mentioned at the dinner table.”

Read: Don’t talk LIV in the locker room.

Westwood wasn’t quite so diplomatic when speaking with reporters after his first round Thursday. When asked about Tiger Woods’ rebuke of LIV from earlier this week, Westwood said, “He’s got a vested interest, hasn’t he? The LIV players will talk up LIV. The PGA Tour players that aren’t on the LIV Tour will talk the PGA Tour up and put down the LIV tour. I don’t pay too much to people’s opinions.”

To which a reporter said, “But he’s saying players that have gone to LIV have turned their back on those who made them.”

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Westwood: “Tiger’s entitled to his opinion.”

One key question looming over the LIV drama is whether LIV players will be barred from the majors. There’s no indication that they will be but there also has been no indication that they won’t. The matter hinges in large part on whether LIV is accredited by the Official World Golf Ranking; if that happens, Norman has said, “everything takes care of itself.”

Meantime, players are taking a wait-and-see approach.

Gooch, 30, who is playing in his just his second Open — he finished T33 a year ago at Royal St. George’s — was asked if he feels any “extra motivation” this week given this could potentially be his last Open start.

“I mean, it would be a cool one to go out on,” he said. “Hopefully not, though.

“I’d like to think that the majors would like to have the best players in the world playing in their events in spite of everything that’s going on, but obviously that’s not up to me. It’s up to other people. Hopefully this won’t be my last one.”

Presumably, Dustin Johnson feels the same way. Johnson this week is playing in his 13th Open; four times he has finished in the top 10, including a runner-up finish in 2011. He said he fell in love with links golf when he first visited the U.K. during his senior year at Coastal Carolina. “I like the way it makes you think on every shot, where you want to hit it, where you want the ball to end up,” he said.

After posting a five-under 67 Friday, Johnson was asked the same question that Gooch had been: Were he and the other LIV players near the top of the leaderboard galvanized by the anti-LIV rhetoric?

“I don’t really know what you’re talking about,” he said. “For me, obviously, they’re all good players and playing well this week.”

Garcia was also posed the same question. He was even more dismissive.

“I don’t care what they say,” he said. 

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The post 5 biggest surprises from the LIV Golf field list (including Dustin Johnson?!) appeared first on Golf.

On Tuesday night, LIV Golf released the long-awaited list of players set to compete in its kickoff tournament next week. The list was comprised of 42 names committed to the 48-player field — more on the other six later. Some you’ve heard of, some you’ll vaguely recognize and some will send you to Google. But there’s no question as to Tuesday’s headliner: Mr. Dustin Johnson! Let’s get to DJ and five other surprises from the list:

Dustin Johnson

Without Johnson, the Centurion field would look a whole lot different. But with him? Suddenly LIV has a golfer still in his prime years. Sure, Johnson might be 18 months removed from his peak, but he’s 37 years old and No. 13 in the world. He won the Masters in 2020. And the fact that LIV won his allegiance even after the PGA Tour released a statement in February declaring his allegiance there? That’s a significant reversal.

But this is hardly out of nowhere for Johnson. As his agent told Golf Channel on Tuesday evening, he has been thinking about this for multiple years. That complete statement:

“Dustin has been contemplating the opportunity off-and-on for the past couple of years. Ultimately, he decided it was in his and his family’s best interest to pursue it. Dustin has never had any issue with the PGA Tour and is grateful for all it has given him, but in the end, felt this was too compelling to pass up.”

As for the rest of the surprises?

1. Talor Gooch

Easily the biggest shocker on the list was Gooch, a 30-year-old who seems (seemed?!) to really be finding his stride on the PGA Tour. He snagged his first victory at the end of 2021, currently sits at No. 35 in the world and seems to have the bulk of his career ahead of him. He also seems primed and ready for an extended stint on the PGA Tour. Most other pros in his position — young guys with cemented status — opted out. It’s intriguing that he opted in.

2. The names not on the list

Adam Scott made waves back in February when he said he was entertaining the league. Enough rumors swirled around Bryson DeChambeau that he, like Johnson, released a statement declaring his allegiance to the PGA Tour. Jason Kokrak has been sporting a Golf Saudi sponsorship and has discussed his interest in the league, too. And of course there’s Phil Mickelson, whose interest in LIV ultimately kicked off a bizarre string of events that resulted in his disappearance from the public eye these last several months. We’re also likely to see other big names at later events, of course, particularly if some pros don’t want to play in London the week before the U.S. Open and will wait to make the leap until the Portland event in July.

But here’s the other thing: This isn’t even the final list for the first tournament. Beneath the roster of players was included this note:

*Note: The final six players will include Commissioner’s invites and berths following the results of The Asian Tour International Series England tournament, June 2-5 at Slayley Hall. Announcements will be made by Monday, June 6.

That means the door is still open for some late RSVPs. I’ll let your imagination run wild…

3. The amateur contingent

Three ams grace the list: U.S. Amateur winner James Piot, Arizona State’s David Puig and Thailand’s Ratchanon “TK” Chantananuwat. This was always one path for LIV to potentially follow in chasing long-term success: Chase down young talented golfers before they’d secured millions in PGA Tour earnings and make it very much worth their while. It appears they’ve found some traction doing so. (Turk Pettit, who won the 2021 NCAA Championship, is now a pro but also deserves mention.)

The timing will be particularly interesting for Puig, who plays in the NCAA Championship final on Wednesday, and Piot, who tees it up at the Memorial Tournament on Thursday.

4. The European stalwarts

Before this all began, Sergio Garcia, Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood would sound like a list of future European Ryder Cup captains. Now all five are competing in the inaugural LIV event. This is down at No. 4 because their participation has been an open secret for months, but it’s still shocking to see it all in writing and to consider that their collective future with the PGA and European Tour is very much uncertain.

5. Chase Koepka

In many ways Chase Koepka is a perfect fit for this list; he’s a known professional golfer who hasn’t been able to play quite well enough to gain full-time status on golf’s biggest tours. Those pressures make LIV a logical landing spot, particularly if the purses prove to match the numbers they’ve claimed. Still, his presence is interesting given his brother Brooks has declared his own allegiance to the PGA Tour — and given Chase is just No. 1,543 in the world.

Koepka’s presence also brings me back to a quote from Norman to The Telegraph.

“Quite honestly, it doesn’t matter who plays, we’re going to put the event on,” he said. “There’s a $4 million first prize. I hope a kid who’s 350th in the world wins. It’ll change his life, his family’s life.

“And then a few of our events will go by and the top players will see someone winning $6 million, $8 million, and say, ‘enough is enough, I know I can beat these guys week in week out with my hands tied behind my back.'”

Chase Koepka is one of many pros on this list who have played against PGA Tour pros with mixed success, at best. If he starts winning millions of dollars in the coming weeks, there’s no question that Tour pros will start to take notice. We have an initial list. Pro golf’s future still has an air of uncertainty.

That means Chase Koepka also one of 42 people who currently share the same question:

Now what?

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The post In botched ruling, Sergio Garcia had another option at his disposal appeared first on Golf.

He fussed. He fumed. He vented his frustration at a Tour referee and talked about taking his talents elsewhere.

In his heated response to a lost-ball ruling at last week’s Wells Fargo Championship, Sergio Garcia exercised his right to free speech.

But did he overlook a legal option that might have helped his cause?

In short: Did Garcia blow it by not invoking Rule 20.1(c) 3?

Before we get into the nitty gritty, let’s review the sequence of events. During Thursday’s opening round at TPC Potomac, Garcia tugged his tee shot on the par-5 10th hole into a red-staked area beyond a creek, and then began a process weekend duffers know too well: hunting in the thicket for his ball.  

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Eventually, he found it, but to no avail, as the referee ruled that the allotted three minutes for searching had expired.

Though Garcia disagreed, and vocally so, he accepted the decision, took a penalty drop, and played on. Only later did tournament officials determine that Garcia had been right; the referee had started the search clock too early. By that point, though, the penalty had to stick because there was no way of knowing what Garcia would have scored with his original ball.

Watching all of this transpire from home, the rules-savvy fan might have wondered: Wait, if Sergio was convinced that the ref had it wrong, why didn’t he play two balls — his original ball and the penalty ball?

Under Rule 20.1 (c) 3, that would have been allowed.

The rule, which applies in stroke play but not in match play, is meant to ensure that everyone gets a fair shake — the golfer and the rest of the field.

Maybe you have even leaned on it yourself when you and your playing partners have come to loggerheads at your local club. Unable to resolve your disagreement in the moment, you play two balls to cover your bases, record both scores and leave it to your head pro to sort things out.

Tour pros can do pretty much the same.

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Rather than simply take a penalty drop, Garcia could have asked to play two balls, and the referee almost certainly would have allowed it, said Steve Rintoul, the Tour’s senior tournament director.

“There’s not a professional referee in the world who is not going to let him do that,” Rintoul said. “You’re protecting the player’s rights, and you’re protecting the field.”

Under the rule, a couple of conditions would have applied: Garcia would have had to announce that he was going to play two balls before hitting either; he also would have had to declare which of those balls he wanted to count. If he failed to make that declaration, then the first ball he struck would have counted by default.

Got it?

If you’ve never seen a Tour pro play two balls in competition, you’re not alone. It doesn’t happen often. With so many eyeballs on the action, and so many cameras on hand for video review, lingering disagreements are exceedingly rare. A decision gets made. The player moves on.

But that’s not to say it never occurs. During last year’s FedEx Cup Playoffs, at the Northern Trust, for example, Scottie Scheffler played two balls on a hole after he and his playing partners couldn’t agree on whether Scheffler had found an errant shot within the allotted time. Scheffler thought he had, his partners thought he hadn’t. (When subsequent video review of the matter proved inconclusive, Scheffler made things easy on everyone and accepted the penalty.)

The point of Rule 20.1(c)3 is to protect a player against an unwarranted penalty — but not to ensure that a player gets a lower score.

Which brings us back to Garcia. After taking his drop on the 10th, Sergio went on to make par, which was a good score, all things considered. Had he played two balls, he could have hacked out his original ball from the long grass and gotten up-and-down for a birdie 4. He also could have wound up with a bogey, a double. Or worse.

In that case, his grumbling almost surely would have continued. But he would have had no one to blame but himself.

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Check in every week for the unfiltered opinions of our writers and editors as they break down the hottest topics in the sport, and join the conversation by tweeting us @golf_com. This week, we discuss the Sergio Garcia’s dustup with a Tour rules official, Phil Mickelson’s reported gambling debts and much more.

1. Both start-up tours made headlines this week. Let’s start with the LIV Golf Invitational Series, the Saudi-funded tour headed by Greg Norman, where the field for its first event, in early June, is beginning to take shape. Ahead of this week’s British Masters, Lee Westwood and Richard Bland expressed their interest, and a report from The Telegraph said Martin Kaymer would also request a release to play. Perhaps most notably was the revelation from Sergio Garcia following a ruling at the Wells Fargo Championship. There, Garcia said, “I can’t wait to leave this Tour,” and later, various outlets reported that Garcia was, in fact, looking to play in the first event. How much, if at all, do these developments alter your view of the fledgling tour’s prospects?

Sean Zak, senior editor (@sean_zak): Absolutely zero change in my opinion. Players like Westwood, Bland and even Garcia are exactly who we’ve been assuming will take part in these events. The youngest and best players have all committed to the PGA Tour. Older players outside the top 10 in the world seem to be considering LIV Golf. So this checks out completely. 

Josh Sens, senior writer: Sean’s right about all of that. I also don’t think there was ever much doubt that the LIV was here for the long haul, given the financial muscle behind it. So the ‘prospects’ question is really two pronged. There’s longevity. And then there’s allure. Yes. It’s got the former. What remains to be seen is how interesting it will be for fans. Big purses alone do not guarantee interesting golf.

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Alan Bastable, executive editor (@alan_bastable): Right, an archetype for LIV “A-listers” is now coming to the fore: past-their-primers who (1) are no longer regularly competitive in the majors, (2) can’t cash in on PIP money or the Tour’s other bonus structures and (3) as Westwood demonstrated last week, don’t appear fazed by the weighty moral and ethical questions before them. Question is, as these guys start to cash monster checks, how many other notables — especially those struggling to find their games — will continue to be content watching from the sidelines as Sergio and Co. fill up their Brink’s trucks. This new tour will have as much longevity as it wants, for one simple reason: it has endless Saudi capital.

Josh Berhow, managing editor (@josh_berhow): I don’t think any of these names being interested in that tour is surprising and it’s a group of players — late in their career, already made some good money, European, etc. — we thought might be joining this tour in the first place. So my view hasn’t changed, but it was pretty entertaining to see Sergio get upset and act childish on his way out.

2. How much should the Tour be concerned that other players could threaten to leave should they disapprove of Tour policy/governance? Remember, we heard Charley Hoffman make a similar remark in February at the Waste Management Open.

Zak: The PGA Tour has a responsibility to host tournaments played under the Rules of Golf. If that is a reason a player actually leaves, the Tour should send them on their way. In case it wasn’t clear with Hoffman, the Rules of Golf will never be the reason a player leaves the PGA Tour. 

Sens: The occasional rules snafu is a non-issue. Name a sport that doesn’t have the occasional rules hiccup. They all do. The concern, I would think, isn’t guys leaving over governance.  It’s guys being part of an antitrust suit if the Tour tries to block them signing on to a rival. Every legal expert I’ve spoken with about this says there would be a legitimate case to be made.

Bastable: Let us not forget that LIV’s rules department will be run by the very rules sharpie who used to lord over PGA Tour events: Slugger White! So if Sergio is looking for some fresh officiating blood, he best find another tour. But, no, the PGA Tour isn’t out of the woods yet in terms of managing discontent players. Its membership will continue to force the Tour to evolve and make paydays fatter. Hopefully that also means revising the endless slog of the Tour schedule. The team/F1-inspired format in play on LIV, which is exactly what the PGL has been pushing for years, makes sense on a lot of levels — most especially for fans.      

Berhow: I don’t think a few bad apples should shape what the PGA Tour is doing. It’s still the league 99% of the world’s best professional golfers want to play in, and you can’t make everyone happy. When these players complain when they are on the course it says more about them than it does the PGA Tour.

3. Another player connected to the Saudi-backed tour, Phil Mickelson, was also in the news, albeit for a different reason. In an excerpt from an upcoming book, published on firepitcollective.com, Mickelson, according to source, accumulated more than $40 million in gambling debt from 2010 to 2014, or roughly the equivalent of his estimated annual income during that period. What’s your takeaway from the latest Phil news?

Zak: That there was merit to anyone who called it a gambling addiction. You don’t build that amount of debt up without being addicted to it.  

Sens: If you’ve paid even loose attention to news around Mickelson over the years, you can only be shocked by this in the Casablanca sense. The reported numbers? Not hard to imagine either, given the kind of earnings Mickelson has pulled in and the sort of allegations that have swirled around him. Anyone who has ever been around gambling and gamblers knows how quickly it can get out of hand.

Bastable: I’m not sure we can just laugh off 40 mil as “Phil being Phil.” That’s a huge sum, and another reminder that he was in deep. Remember, this a guy who the SEC alleged acted on a stock tip to pay off a seven-figure debt to notorious gambler Billy Walters. Pretty dark stuff. You have to wonder what, if any, effect losing that kind of dough had on his play. Distracting? Hard to say. He did win five times from 2010-14, including a pair of majors.

Berhow: It’s a staggering number. Just yet another unsavory question he’ll have to face when he returns and meets with the media. I’m not sure if he’ll actually answer it, but wow is there a lot going on in Phil Mickelson’s world right now.

4. The Premier Golf League, meanwhile, sent a letter to PGA Tour players asking that they “message your player representatives on the PAC and the Policy Board and tweet/retweet: ‘As a member of the tour, I instruct you to obtain and publish an independent valuation of the PGL Proposals #playerpower #transparency.’ If seventy or more of you do this, it will happen.” Can it? Will it? What’s the future of the PGL?

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Zak: I haven’t seen a Tour player send those tweets yet! So no, it probably won’t happen. The Premier Golf League needs this, though, so I don’t see them giving up. I see them talking to as many influential players as possible. They don’t have the various stigmas facing LIV Golf, and there’s clearly enough interest in changing something about how elite golfers get paid. I think their days of playing a passive role — letting LIV take their format and run with it — might come to an end soon.

Sens: I try to steer clear of Twitter as much as possible. Life’s too short, but if Sean says he hasn’t seen it, I believe it. Seriously, though, like the Saudi-backed Tour, the Premier Golf League isn’t going anywhere. At this point, it costs relatively little to keep agitating for change. Whether they can put together a circuit that gets fans excited is another matter. The idea of elite golfers getting paid more is not especially interesting to most of us. There has to be more to it than that.

Bastable: Agitating for change may cost relatively little but it does cost something, and, as I understand it, the PGL’s financial backers are getting antsy, thus last week’s letter. PGL brass is deeply frustrated that the Tour won’t give its proposal the attention they believe it deserves. As I mentioned above, there’s actually a lot to like about the team model — in particular in terms of drumming up fan interest — but the Tour seems unwilling to capitulate, and PGL can’t keep lobbying forever.      

Berhow: In the public eye, one of the biggest things working against the PGL is that most people think it’s the same thing as the LIV Golf league. I can hardly keep all of this straight, but no, I can’t see this league working.

5. One of the more famed holes in golf, the dramatic, par-4 8th at Pebble Beach, is undergoing a makeover. The work came to light Friday when Twitter user @GlorifiedDonkey, who identifies himself as a Pebble Beach caddie, posted four photos of the construction project. A source familiar with the project told GOLF.com that the green is being enlarged and its back-to-front slope made less severe to create more hole locations. Give us another design tweak you’d like to see at Pebble.

Zak: Cut down the tree in the fairway on 18. It doesn’t do much for me. 

Sens: Somehow, I think we can all guess where Sean has left his drives on that hole. Personally, I liked the 11th green better before they changed it. The tilt on it was exciting stuff. Also, for every day play, I’d shorten the par-3 12th hole and give the average player some hope of actually hitting it.

Bastable: The pushover par-3 7th is way too short. Extend the peninsula into the bay so it can play 220-230 on calm days. I kid! I kid! The par-4 1st is a ho-hum opener. How about removing one or two trees from the corner of the dogleg so mere mortals can fly the corner like the pros do?

Berhow: Don’t people on Twitter always say Pebble would benefit from a re-routing? I don’t know if it does and I can’t think of a good answer here, but don’t you dare take that tree out, Sean.

6. With the PGA Championship a week away, Joe Buck confirmed that he would lead a “Manningcast”-style broadcast for the tournament. In the football version, brothers Peyton and Eli Manning invite guests so who would you like to see join Buck?

Zak: I would like to see randomness join Buck. Chevy Chase. Jerry Rice. Not just folks who have played in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but people who we can actually learn something about while they watch! Shaquille O’Neal. Kristin Stewart. People from the industry who we should listen to more often. Meg Maclaren. Nancy Lopez. 

Sens: I can’t think of any broadcast that Charles Barkley doesn’t make better.

Bastable: There’s only one right answer: Phil.  

Berhow: Phil. Anthony Kim. Tony Romo. Juli Inkster. Cristie Kerr. Gil Hanse. And a bunch of big-name pros who might miss the cut and offer to join on the weekend.

The post Tour Confidential: Sergio’s rant, Phil’s gambling and the spicy PGL letter appeared first on Golf.

The post Why the Sergio Garcia ruling was so confusing: Questions and answers appeared first on Golf.

The post Why the Sergio Garcia ruling was so confusing: Questions and answers appeared first on Golf.

Sergio Garcia was — and we’ll put it nicely — upset. A referee was corrected in a late-night statement. And you? Engrossed. Who doesn’t like golf drama? But maybe a little confused too. After all, if a paid official initially got Thursday’s ruling wrong at the Wells Fargo Championship, then the armchair ones may have also been unclear over what went down to the left of TPC Potomac’s 10th fairway.

Rules

There, across a river, somewhere in the thick stuff, was Garcia’s tee shot. From there, a spotter pointed the player in that direction, Garcia hopped, skipped and jumped over rocks to get there, and the search began. Or did it? The official had believed Garcia was looking as he was crossing over, he started his clock somewhere at this point, and the ball was found one minute over the allotted three. 

And Garcia was upset. And a referee was corrected. 

So let’s try to untangle all of this. Maybe we can find clarity before the buzzer. 

When does a search begin?       

This is the core question. And not exactly exact. It’s not as if players regularly shout, “I’m beginning my search now.” (Though, to be honest, that would have helped on Thursday.) So, like many golf rules scenarios, players and officials operate under the honor system. 

In the rules book itself, there is some guidance under an interpretation of the definition of “lost,” which reads: “The three-minute search time for a ball starts when the player or his or her caddie (or the player’s partner or partner’s caddie) starts to search for it. “Starts to search for it” is obviously the key. The official assumes that the player has arrived in the area where they estimate the ball to be — and that was the issue between Garcia and the official, which the PGA Tour noted in a clarification on Thursday night. 

The complete statement:

“On the 10th hole of Thursday’s first round of the Wells Fargo Championship, Sergio Garcia drove his ball left into a red penalty area. As Garcia entered the penalty area, a referee located on the 10th hole started a search time clock, as it appeared a search for the golf ball had begun. Unbeknownst to the referee, the players in the group were told by a TV spotter that the ball was on the far side of the creek, and at that point, Garcia spent a considerable amount of time trying to access the other side of the creek. This was not in clear view of the referee due to other players in the group playing, so the time clock was still running on the search, when it should have been paused. When the ball was found by Garcia, the referee’s three-minute search time had expired, and Garcia was informed the ball was treated as lost. Garcia operated under Rule 17.1d (2) using back-on-the-line relief from a red penalty area. Garcia made 5 (par) on the hole. 

“Subsequently, the Rules Committee reviewed video from the situation after the ruling and discovered the inadvertent error by the referee who was not aware the player was not searching for the ball on the other side of the creek. To clarify, the time spent by Garcia trying to access the other side of the creek should have delayed the start of the search time clock, and the ball would have still been “in play” if not for that error. Garcia was informed of the developments following his round. Under the Rules of Golf, Garcia’s score does not change despite this clarification.” 

Wait, the 3-minute clock can be paused?

You bet. And the rules cover this. Also under the definition of “lost,” the book says: “If the search begins and is then temporarily interrupted for a good reason (such as when the player stops searching when play is suspended or needs to stand aside to wait for another player to play) or when the player has mistakenly identified a wrong ball: The time between the interruption and when the search resumes does not count, and The time allowed for search is three minutes in total, counting the search time both before the interruption and after the search resumes.” (More clock-stopping clarity is also addressed under interpretation 18.2 a(1)/1, entitled “Time Permitted for Search When Search Temporarily Interrupted.”)

So say Sergio had to even cross a river, a valley and a mountain to get to his ball? That’s cool, right?

Again, yes, but at this point, we should point out that a player shouldn’t take their sweet time to get to where they think the ball is — in order for fans and officials to begin the search. 

The rules spell this out, also under an interpretation for “lost.”

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“The player may not delay the start of the search in order to gain an advantage by allowing other people to search on his or her behalf,” the interpretation reads. “For example, if a player is walking towards his or her ball and spectators are already looking for the ball, the player cannot deliberately delay getting to the area to keep the three-minute search time from starting. In such circumstances, the search time starts when the player would have been in a position to search had he or she not deliberately delayed getting to the area.”

But what if a player gets injured while getting to their ball? Can the clock stop for that? 

This would likely fall under the rules committee at the event. Specific wording in the definition of lost — “If the search begins and is then temporarily interrupted for a good reason” — is vague and would give officials some leeway for whatever reason.

Back up one second: So folks in the crowd or officials can search for the ball — and that doesn’t count toward the clock?

Correct! Here, it pays to be a popular player.  

News

How does the clock actually work?

With an hour and second hand! Kidding, kidding. Some officials use an actual stopwatch. Some use their iPhone. 

But what happens when a referee arrives when the search has already begun? Typically, they’ll ask, and honesty is in play.

One more question: Do referees give time updates? Or at least say when the 3 minutes is up? 

Some do. 

We’ll leave it at that.

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The post Sergio Garcia ruling in heated incident is a mistake, PGA Tour says appeared first on Golf.

The post Sergio Garcia ruling in heated incident is a mistake, PGA Tour says appeared first on Golf.

Sergio Garcia was right. A referee was wrong. 

But Garcia’s score still stands. 

In a rules clarification Thursday night following a heated incident with Garcia during first-round play at the Wells Fargo Championship, the PGA Tour said that a ruling by one of its officials was an “inadvertent error.” In question was when the referee should have started his 3-minute search clock after Garcia hooked his tee shot left and into the red-marked penalty area on the 10th hole at TPC Potomac. 

News

Originally, the official apparently began his timer shortly after Garcia started to make his way across a stream that separates the 10th fairway from where his ball could have been, and when Garcia found his tee shot, the referee told the player that it had taken him 4 minutes, 1 minute longer than allowed under rule 18.2. However, following a video review after the round, the Tour said that Garcia should not have been docked to cross the water — and that he had found his ball in time. 

But Garcia’s score won’t change, according to the Tour, citing the Rules of Golf. During the original sequence, Garcia eventually took his penalty drop, hit short of the green, hit on and one-putted for a par five. 

The initial ruling was not without frustration. As Garcia made his way back to the fairway, he started to ridicule the ruling. “You want me to swim through the river? I wasn’t looking for the ball there. I was looking for the ball once I got over to this side. Does that make sense? I knew it was on this side of the river.”

The rules official clarified his ruling, and Garcia, swatting flies away from his face, said, “So, you’re saying it took too long?” Then he turned away and offered these words: “I can’t wait to leave this Tour.” 

“I can’t wait to get out of here, my friend,” Garcia continued as he grabbed his ball and trudged back to play his shot. “Just a couple more weeks and I won’t have to deal with you anymore.” 

Finally, Garcia shoved his clubs into his staff bag and shouted across the fairway, “I’m going to play slow now, OK?” He hit his layup shot and then proceeded to berate the official. “That is bulls—t. That is absolute bulls—t. I mean, I’m a minute and a half over [time] and you don’t tell me?”

According to Golf Channel, Garcia refused to talk to reporters afterward. The Tour release said “Garcia was informed of the developments following his round.”

Below is the Tour’s complete release:

“Official statement from the PGA Tour 

“Clarification regarding Sergio Garcia ruling, following full review of video by Steve Rintoul 

“May 5, 2022 — Wells Fargo Championship 

“On the 10th hole of Thursday’s first round of the Wells Fargo Championship, Sergio Garcia drove his ball left into a red penalty area. As Garcia entered the penalty area, a referee located on the 10th hole started a search time clock, as it appeared a search for the golf ball had begun. Unbeknownst to the referee, the players in the group were told by a TV spotter that the ball was on the far side of the creek, and at that point, Garcia spent a considerable amount of time trying to access the other side of the creek. This was not in clear view of the referee due to other players in the group playing, so the time clock was still running on the search, when it should have been paused. When the ball was found by Garcia, the referee’s three-minute search time had expired, and Garcia was informed the ball was treated as lost. Garcia operated under Rule 17.1d (2) using back-on-the-line relief from a red penalty area. Garcia made 5 (par) on the hole. 

“Subsequently, the Rules Committee reviewed video from the situation after the ruling and discovered the inadvertent error by the referee who was not aware the player was not searching for the ball on the other side of the creek. To clarify, the time spent by Garcia trying to access the other side of the creek should have delayed the start of the search time clock, and the ball would have still been “in play” if not for that error. Garcia was informed of the developments following his round. Under the Rules of Golf, Garcia’s score does not change despite this clarification.” 

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