Swedish newspaper Expressen is reporting that Ryder Cup captain Henrik Stenson is on the verge of joining LIV Golf.
The Swede, who missed the cut at the 150th Open at St Andrews by a single shot, reportedly did not want to comment on anything to do with the Saudi-funded competitions when the Expressen, one of two evening newspapers in Sweden, spoke with him before the Championship.
The 46-year-old will be at Royal Troon on Monday to unveil a short course on the historic links with the news expected to follow soon that he will be the latest defector to LIV.
Should it be true he will join fellow European Ryder Cup stars Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, Paul Casey, Martin Kaymer, Ian Poulter and Graeme McDowell, all of whom would have been strong contenders for the captaincy in the coming years.
This also follows a piece in The Times (opens in new tab) three weeks ago that Stenson, and Tommy Fleetwood, had been linked to the breakaway tour: “There is speculation around Tommy Fleetwood, whose wife and manager, Clare Craig, was at the Centurion Club. There is also speculation that Henrik Stenson’s management team has been in talks with LIV.”
Earlier in the week the R&A’s chief executive Martin Slumbers said that any LIV players would not be called for pre-championship interviews – not that the Ryder Cup skipper, even one who won The Open as recently as 2016, would generally speak with the media ahead of The Open.
Other conspiracy theories would include that Stenson was placed in a low-key threeball with Amateur champion Aldrich Potgieter and Luke List, similar treatment to other LIV players, and, if we were to take things on a level, his design company reportedly hopes to bid on a number of course projects in Saudi Arabia.
The move would almost certainly see Stenson step aside from the Ryder Cup captaincy, which would be a crippling blow to the matches in Italy next year, both in terms of face and timing. Stenson was only named as the skipper as recently as March, a relatively late appointment in terms of the captaincy, and it might open the door to…
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