At present, golfers who left for the Saudi-backed breakaway LIV Golf league are barred indefinitely from competing on the PGA Tour circuit, and the possible re-integration of those players back into the fold has become one of the most contentious issues surrounding the proposed peace deal in the sport.
It is many fans’ hope that players such as Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm will be able to compete more regularly against the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele, but it remains unclear what the future holds if and when a deal is reached between the Saudi Public Investment Fund and the PGA Tour.
However, 2009 US Open champion Lucas Glover believes that the re-integration should occur regardless, especially for the PGA Tour’s Signature Events.
The Signature Events consist of eight high-profile tournaments with substantial prize money and strong player fields. Glover, who earned $3.6 million from his triumph at the FedEx St Jude Championship during an exceptional comeback last year, argues that restricting LIV players’ participation in these events would ultimately damage the PGA Tour’s product.
“If you’re going to put a top-end event, there’s some top-end, huge talent playing LIV,” Glover stated on his Sirius XM Radio Show. “Players that would obviously benefit the PGA Tour.
“If we’re going to have a for-profit money-making organisation, then we’re going to need those guys, and golf needs them too. If that’s unification, if that’s playing head-to-head, whatever they come up with, the best players in the world need to be playing.”
There remains significant uncertainty, however, regarding how many LIV golfers might be inclined to return regularly to the PGA Tour, especially as it would be in a completely altered landscape.
Whether or not the LIV players would choose to compete on the PGA Tour should the restrictions be lifted is another matter, as 2022 Open Championship winner Cameron Smith admitted recently to bunkered.co.uk.
“That mindset for me has been and gone,” Smith remarked. “There’s a couple (PGA Tour) events I would like to play but I’m very happy out here to be honest. I really enjoy my time in Australia and playing a couple extra events this year was pretty cool.”
Glover was also among the most vocal opponents of the recent PGA Tour changes that will see playing opportunities reduced as fields are cut to a maximum of 144, with the fields for many of the big-money events reduced further still and the 36-hole cut removed.
“It should be a fuller field if you’re putting up $22 to $25 million for one of these events, or maybe even more, who knows, but limiting the fans and limiting the TV audience to 70 to 80 players, it really limits the storylines,” he added.
“It limits the drama. It limits the overall competition, in my opinion, because the more bodies, the more golfers, the more competition. That’s just common sense. And on top of that, you take it one more level. It’s better for the fans on site, because then you get golf all day.”
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