Pádraig Harrington admits that he can’t see the PGA Tour and LIV Golf coming together as one global golf tour and would like to see some rivalries return to the sport by extending invites to players from both tours.
Speaking ahead of the Cologuard Classic on the Champions Tour, Harrington feels an agreement can be reached between the PGA Tour and LIV to allow a small number players to compete on both tours, particularly when it comes to letting LIV players compete in their home opens on tour.
In an interesting twist, the three-time major champion also suggested the possibility of having an outside team from the PGA Tour for each LIV event.
“I played Mexican Open there on the PGA TOUR a couple weeks ago and I’m sure they would have loved to have Abraham Ancer play. So I’m not against having a small amount of invites, and that cuts both ways,” Harrington outlined.
“If a LIV event went to, you know, a certain market where they don’t have home players, I’m sure they would like to invite those players from that country.
“Again, when the European Tour is in Spain this year, we would love to have Jon Rahm play the Spanish Open. I’m not against a small amount of transfer of players playing events and, you know, maybe a couple of invites going each direction. Maybe an outside team playing every week in LIV, why not.
“But again, not too sure how they’re going to come together as one tour, so why not have an agreeable two tours where there’s a bit of rivalry.”
The Dubliner has been plying his trade on both the DP World Tour and PGA Tour when away from the Champions Tour. Life on the Senior Circuit can be detached from the political struggles in professional golf.
Harrington has seen friends move to the Saudi backed tour since its inception in 2022 and admits he doesn’t mind the rivalry and rather than keep the best players away from each other, both tours should find a way to have two strong sides which can allow a rivalry to develop similar to the one between the old European Tour and PGA Tour – but added the caveat that LIV shouldn’t have the pick of the best players from the US circuit.
“Pretty much a lot of my friends went to LIV, so I also have a good few guys out there who I would be friendly with, guys that are captain of the Ryder Cup, played on the Ryder Cup. So I can see both sides of it.
“You know, in the end of the day, I played the majority of my career when there was two strong tours and there was a bit of rivalry and a bit of competition, so I’m not — I wouldn’t be averse to that being in the future where there’s two tours and who doesn’t love a little bit of competition? Whatever football team or whatever team you follow, you follow one team and you’ve always got a little bit of an edge against the other team.
“I don’t mind the rivalry.
“I think the biggest thing going forward for the PGA TOUR, there has to be some way of capping — you know, can’t just steal all our players. I don’t — players will always make a choice individually what’s right for them, but I think the Tour has to — there’s very few businesses in this world where there isn’t some sort of a noncompete sort of clause. If somebody wants to leave, the Tour should get the money, not the player.
“I don’t know. That would be my thing. I don’t mind the competition. It doesn’t look like there will be any sort of golfing marriage in the near future, so why not have it a little bit like the old European Tour, PGA TOUR where there’s a little bit of competition. Certainly is good for the fans when there’s rivalries.”
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