It’s known as “the strongest field in golf” but The Players Championship is missing some big names this year with nobody from the LIV Golf League in attendance at TPC Sawgrass.
It’s a big point of conjecture this week that with so many big names not in the line-up, The Players Championship should lose it’s unofficial tag as ‘the fifth Major’ in golf.
For different reasons, The Players is also missing the star power of Tiger Woods as the 15-time Major champion has decided not to play for the fifth year running.
But with Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton now joining the likes of Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith and Brooks Koepka in LIV Golf, the quality of the field at The Players has undoubtedly taken a hit.
And the reason being that despite Jay Monahan saying he’s been in talks with Saudi PIF boss Yasir Al-Rumayyan, LIV Golf players are still automatically suspended from the PGA Tour.
The men’s Majors have benefitted from the split in golf, with the four big events now the only ones where the likes of Rahm, Mickelson and Koepka will tackle Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland.
The fifth Major has not yet followed suit though, with the PGA Tour’s showpiece event following the line of the rest of the circuit in not allowing LIV players to compete.
Monahan did say on Wednesday that talks with the Saudi PIF are accelerating and you’d presume that if an investment deal can eventually get done then LIV Golf players would be allowed to take part at some stage.
We’ve not reached that stage yet though, so even though some players such as Billy Horschel would like to see LIV stars teeing it up at Sawgrass, they continue to miss out.
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“I’m born and raised in the state of Florida, so this has always been a fifth major to me and I’ve always seen it as that,” Horschel told Sky Sports.
“It’s unfortunate that we don’t have some of the best players in the world here. I did have a conversation with Jay [Monahan] about a year and a half ago about if the majors were going to let the guys that went to LIV, shouldn’t we maybe let them in?
“If we see ourselves as a fifth major, which I believe we are, shouldn’t we, maybe put out a little bit of olive branch?
“We had a great conversation about that and I understood his side of it and the PGA Tour side, but I think personally it’s tough to say that we don’t have all the best players in the world here.
“Take out the world rankings, take out everything. Everyone…
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