The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship promises to be a memorable occasion with some of the world’s best players and a host of amateurs, including celebrities, teeing it up at the DP World Tour event.
However, there is even more intrigue at the Carnoustie, Kingsbarns and Old Course, St Andrews event this year with confirmation that three of the key figures in the struggle to reunite the top of the men’s elite game will also be present.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, the governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) behind LIV Golf, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, and DP World Tour CEO Guy Kinnings will all be on-site at this week’s tournament, with the first two in the field. Monahan and Al-Rumayyan will play in the same group as each other, alongside Billy Horschel and Dean Burmester.
This will be Al-Rumayyan’s second successive appearance at the tournament, albeit at last year’s event, he appeared under the pseudonym Andrew Waterman.
On that occasion, he played alongside R&A CEO Martin Slumbers, although the fact that Monahan, in particular, will also be competing this year gives it added significance.
Talks between the DP World Tour, the PGA Tour and the PIF have been ongoing for well over a year, with the initial announcement that the three organizations had come to the table having been made on 6 June 2023.
Yasir Al-Rumayyan was alongside R&A CEO Martin Slumbers at the 2023 event
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Since then, progress has been slow, although there have been encouraging signs along the way that a breakthrough could be made. The latest official word came in August when Monahan admitted talks were “complex” but that there was “optimism about the future and our ability to come together.”
That sentiment appeared to be given more credence the following month when it was reported that one of the most influential PGA Tour players and current Player Director, Tiger Woods, had flown into New York for further talks with the PIF.
Since then, reports have suggested that the money players were paid to join LIV Golf is a sticking point in their possible return to the PGA Tour, although nothing official has suggested the talks have hit problems.
It was also confirmed last month that the DP World Tour had rejected an offer from LIV Golf to pay the outstanding fines of…
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