This. It’s their property. It would be like someone suing me for not inviting them to dinner at my house because I said “everyone is welcome” at one point in time.
***2022 PGA Tour Thread***
- Thread starter BigJCy
- Start date
This. It’s their property. It would be like someone suing me for not inviting them to dinner at my house because I said “everyone is welcome” at one point in time.
He's a past winner and past winners get a lifetime of automatic invitations, so probably. Unless they're going to change their exemption criteria. They may quietly ask him not to come though.
I'm not saying they can't. I'm saying they won't in this situation. They are above the PGA vs. LIV Tour battle. There is a difference between getting sent to jail for domestic assault and guys joining a new tour that competes with the PGA.
If I were a betting man, if Angel can still swing a club (he's 52), he will play in the Masters some day. He might have to apologize, make some act of contrition or sit a few years- but he'll play.
We don't really know if they can or can't. One of the prizes for winning the masters is the opportunity to come back forever, can they take that away after the fact? Maybe. But maybe not.
It's an invite only tournament from a group of people who regularly make a point of reminding everyone they can do whatever the hell they want. They have general criteria they can deviate from if they want.
They have a very specific criteria, nothing general about it. If you win you get a lifetime invitation. They could deviate, but to say the people that had life time invitations taken away couldn't or wouldn't maybe try to sue is optimistic. Maybe the player wouldn't win that fight though, who knows.
The FedEx Cup winner gets $18M, so that is a big payday. I think most of the top players will stick around for the opportunity to play at East Lake the last week of August.
After that, if guys can get over the Saudi funding aspect (or Trump Courses), we could see a bunch of guys jump to LIV Golf. The LIV Golf year-end team tournament in Miami has a $50M purse.
he's talking about other golfers who haven't left yet. We'll see how that goes, I'm curious what the reactions these golfers are going to get at the Opens. They going to get booed?
I'd almost guarantee that the word "discretion" is used heavily in whatever documents there are surrounding this. Previously they have quietly asked people to not play anymore due to competitiveness but if I had to guess, their other option was to not be invited. Almost like a resign or fire sort of scenario.
I think there'll be quite a few guys that leave after the season. I'm thinking guess like Ancer, maybe Neimann as I've heard the South Americans could be a large loss. Maybe a guy like Tyrell Hatton, Matt Wolfe, etc. They will play out the year, let the fire sort of burn out, and head off. I don't think it's going to be guys like Thomas, McIlroy or Rahm but it wouldn't surprise me to see a bunch of 10-40 guys take off.
You look at the Masters and the members of that club much differently than I do. I've never seen that they cared what anyone else wanted and they're probably not the least bit concerned about a lawsuit. As was noted, they've shown over and over they'll do what they want. That won't change here.
The Saudi funding issue is real, but I thnk the PGA Tour is trying to blow up the issue. IMO it's non-issue for a share of players, especially international players.
If Saudi Royal Family was such a pariah from a US perspective, the US Government would have stopped selling weapons to the Saudis, closed our embassy, discontinued trade, etc. etc.
The other group holding cards in this conversation are Sponsors. Rory makes around $35M from his sponsors each year. So $200M from the Saudi Tour isn't a game changer. I think most current players are taking a wait & see attitude on:
- How sponsors react for guys like Reed, Garcia & Na. Golf Tournaments that aren't watched by millions of people, don't have a lot of marketing opportunity.
- World Golf Ranking Points for LIV Tournaments
National and international security implications and some golf thing. SAME DIFFERENCE lol.
This would be my biggest concern if I were the PGA Tour. If I'm, say, Brooks Koepka, I let all these other guys go out in front of the media and take a beating first. Play the rest of this PGA Tour season (which he rarely plays anyway) and take the temperature of the whole thing next March. I can see why guys like Phil, Poulter, Westwood, etc. needed to get in while the gettin' was good, but for the guys still at or near their prime they can afford to see how it all plays out.
'I don't play for money': Jon Rahm takes aim at LIV Golf
The US Open champion doesn't mince his words when it comes to the Saudi-backed series
www.nationalclubgolfer.com
I agree. I think it all hinges on two things, the world rankings and how LIV events factor into them and how long the Saudi Arabia ownership remains an issue.
If LIV events count high enough that competing in them will ensure the competitors spots in the masters, they'll get more players next season. If not, they will not.
If people (and media) keep bring up the Saudi money and the players have to answer for it every time they're in front of a camera, are heckled every time they step on a golf course that will make it hard for them to air the event on anything other than youtube and for sponsors to want to do business with them.
I think issue #2 ties with issue #1. If issue #2 doesn't fade away, it's more likely that the golf world will make sure this league is marginalized.
If Trump gets behind LIV and can turn this into a partisan issue I think that helps LIV. On the other hand, if the PGA is successful in linking LIV, the Saudi's and 9/11 that would be tough to overcome.
