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NORMAN, Okla. — Rico Hoey has heard his fair share of chatter the past couple weeks. Then again, who hasn’t in the golf world?
Hoey, a 27-year-old from the Philippines, sits second in the Korn Ferry Tour standings with a win, a T-2 and six top-10 finishes in 14 starts this season. He’s well on his way to securing a PGA Tour card for next season, one of 30 up for grabs in the season-long points race. However, he has no idea what the future looks like, and most don’t.
Two weeks ago, the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced the framework of a new global golf entity. Even with the groundbreaking news, there’s still not much known about what the future looks like.
“I don’t really know what’s going on or what’s going to happen,” Hoey said Thursday after an opening-round 7-under 65 in the Compliance Solutions Championship at Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club. “For me, I’m just really happy to play out here and am going to focus on that. We’ll just keep hearing whenever the news comes out.”
Hoey’s sentiment is common among Korn Ferry Tour players, which is they are pretty much clueless as to what the future is going to be like. Logan McAllister said he wouldn’t comment on the situation because he didn’t know enough about it.
For most players, it’s business as usual the rest of the season. Beyond, no one knows.
The same has been said from dozens of golfers on the PGA Tour, as well. There have been plenty of conversations regarding whether LIV golfers will find their way back on the PGA Tour and how they can be let back in with the merger.
And for every time a LIV player comes back to the PGA Tour, that’s another spot that a Korn Ferry Tour player would take or players like Grant could lose their spot to.
Outside of the initial announcement, there’s plenty of speculation as to what it actually means. And it’s putting plenty on player’s minds, like Brent Grant.
After earning his PGA Tour card last year, Grant has made 22 starts this year, including last week’s U.S. Open. However, he wasn’t in the field this week at the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Connecticut, so he headed to Norman to continue finding his groove with a new caddie on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Grant was at the RBC Canadian Open when the announcement of the agreement was made, though he didn’t attend the meeting with Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and fellow players. Yet his feelings echo the same thoughts of many on both tours.
“A the end of the day, they gave us no answers,” Grant said. “I feel that there were more than enough guys like me at the meeting who were going to say probably the same things as me. They sprung it on us out of no where. We’re so in the dark it’s hard to tell whether they made the right move or not.
“But for guys like me, Grayson Murray, ones who have won and grinded it out to get on Tour, they kind of feel sold out. But you know, me as a rookie, ultimately they don’t even know who I am, so it doesn’t really matter.”