DP World Tour members like Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood are eligible for the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth after their suspensions for playing in the inaugural event of the Saudi-backed breakaway were temporarily stayed on appeal.
American Talor Gooch and Mexico’s Abraham Ancer are in the field thanks to being in the world’s top 60, but Horschel believes they are being “hypocritical” in chasing ranking points having never shown any interest in the event before.
“Even though Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter have been stalwarts for the European Tour, I don’t think those guys really should be here,” Billy Horschel said.
“I honestly don’t think that the American guys who haven’t supported the Tour should be here. Abraham Ancer, Talor Gooch. … you’ve never played this tournament, you’ve never supported the DP World Tour. Why are you here?
“You are here for one reason only and that’s to try to get world ranking points because you don’t have it (on LIV Golf).
“It’s hypocritical because of what some of these guys have said when they said they wanted to play less golf. It’s pretty hypocritical to come over here and play outside LIV when your big thing was to spend more time with family and want to play less golf.
“I wouldn’t call Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter hypocrites because they never said they wanted to play less. The guys that have publicly stated they want to play less, those are the hypocrites.”
Horschel believes that players were “naive” to believe that they would not be suspended by the PGA Tour for joining LIV and that some failed to adequately weigh up the pros and cons.
“Maybe those guys aren’t smart enough to think on their own and maybe their agents gave them bad information,” Horschel added.
“I know for a fact that certain agents just gave certain players bad information and some of those players are ticked (off) that they listened to their agents on that.
“Some of these agents led these guys down a bad road. They didn’t give them the entire information and they didn’t play devil’s advocate the way they should have.
“I guarantee if I was in their seat, my agent would have played devil’s advocate, or I would have played devil’s advocate. We did talk about what if LIV did come to us, what are the pros and cons.
“And we made a list. There was a lot of cons on that LIV Golf side and very few on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour. There’s a lot more pros on…
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