LIV Golf is organizing a week. After landing Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson for his first event at London’s Centurion Club this week, the first LIV Golf draft was held on Tuesday night and everyone in the golf world was set to show it all. Now, the league will add US Open 2020 champion Bryson DeChambeau with others rumored to follow shortly thereafter.
DeChambeau will join the Saudi-backed league, likely for his second event at Portland, Oregon’s Pumpkin Ridge from June 30 to July 2. he provides LIV Golf with plenty of momentum as it moves into its inaugural eight-event season.
“Bryson has always been an innovator”, his agent said in a statement. “Having the opportunity to step into the ground floor of something unique has always been intriguing to him. Professional golf as we know it is changing and happening rapidly.”
After wasting time due to injury, DeChambeau made his first PGA Tour appearance in several months last week at the Memorial Tournament, where he missed the cut. His intentions have clearly changed over the past seven days.
“I think it’s mostly – a lot of it is private,” DeChambeau said last week at Muirfield Village. “There aren’t really any conversations that need to be done about this, other than the fact that, like, every person out here has their own opinion about it. I, obviously there are a lot of conversations. For me, personally I don’t think that a this point I’m at a point in my career where I can risk things like that.
“I am loyal to my family that I have created around me with sponsors and all. And from this point on, the world of golf will probably change somehow. I don’t know what it is. It is not my job to do that. I will keep playing. to professional golf and I will enjoy wherever it takes me, I will play with the best players in the world. This is really all I have, is what I will do for the rest of my life. life, because I want to be one of the best players in the world. “
This is another coup for LIV Golf, which got bigger names in its infancy than previously thought. It’s also an issue for the PGA Tour, which has been fairly quiet up until now about specific disciplinary actions for players abandoning ship for the rival league. A PGA Tour player I spoke to expects a tough statement from the Tour in the next few days, and I believe it will arrive as soon as the balls are in the air on Thursday in London and the players officially play in the event.
LIV Golf may also not be completed by adding players. According to multiple sources, 2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed is expected to join DeChambeau in the LIV Golf league. Sources also told CBS Sports that more big names should be added in the coming days, a roster that potentially includes Jason Kokrak, Rickie Fowler, and Harold Varner III. As I have always saidhow the major league organizations handle this will likely determine how it turns out in the future.
The USGA announced on Tuesday that LIV Golf league players could also play the 2022 US Open from June 16-19, but did not take a long-term position on the league. It appears that the four major organizations want to withhold OWGR points from LIV Golf events with the hope that players who jump to the rival PGA Tour league will ultimately not qualify for the four majors because they cannot earn enough points to qualify.
In any case, the PGA Tour is in a difficult position. With players exiting the Tour and heading towards the perception of greener pastures and also resigning from the Tour as a group, their line of appeal is extremely limited. There is not even an end in sight for this. The last six months have been curious and intriguing regarding the fracture of professional golf, but the next six will shape the future of the sport for a long, long time.