It is well known that any PGA Tour player who signs the LIV Golf faces suspension from the more established organisation.
However, the Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard reports (opens in new tab) that the PGA Tour has taken even more wide-reaching steps to dissuade players from teeing it up on the big-money circuit, with non-members affected, including top amateurs and college players.
A regulation that began at the start of the 2022/23 season states that “any player who has participated in an unauthorized tournament is ineligible to compete in any event sanctioned by the PGA Tour for a period of one year.”
The player handbook defines an “unauthorised tournament” as “any golf event for which the commissioner has denied or has indicated he would deny all conflicting event releases and/or media releases or not eligible for releases because it is to be held in North America.”
As well as PGA Tour events, the regulation also applies to qualifying events including Monday qualifiers for the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour and Q-School. Meanwhile, the report states that one LIV player is already affected by it. Spaniard David Puig joined LIV Golf as an amateur for the inaugural season and played in three tournaments, the first two as an amateur. The regulation means he must now sit out this year’s PGA Tour events.
The news is unlikely to stifle accusations that the PGA Tour is behaving in an authoritarian manner in its approach to LIV Golf. For example, last August, LIV player Lee Westwood, when discussing the closer ties between the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour amid the LIV threat, claimed the PGA Tour “have always been bullies.”
Meanwhile, LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman has repeatedly said that players should be allowed compete where they like as they are independent contractors. Before the opening LIV Golf tournament, Norman also declared: “We will not be stopped” after the PGA Tour denied player releases to the circuit.
He said: “Sadly, the PGA Tour seems intent on denying professional golfers their right to play golf, unless it’s exclusively in a PGA Tour tournament. This is particularly disappointing in light of the Tour’s non-profit status, where its mission is purportedly ‘to promote the common interests of professional tournament golfers’.”
With the PGA Tour’s authority to suspend players from its tournaments now extending to amateurs and non-members, it appears its approach to the LIV Golf threat shows no sign of softening.
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