In his social media post, McDowell took a shot at “some other tours” for not enforcing the rules as thoroughly as LIV.
Graeme McDowell has been suspended from next week’s LIV Greenbrier event for violating the league’s anti-doping policy.
McDowell, the 2010 U.S. Open champion who has been playing on LIV Golf since its debut and is a member of Smash GC, violated the league’s anti-doping policy during LIV Golf Nashville by using a decongestant medicine that included a banned substance, R-methamphetamine (levo-methamphetamine).
In accordance with the policy, a one tournament suspension effective at LIV Golf Greenbrier will be imposed, LIV announced, a fine of $125,000 will be assessed and the player’s and team’s results for LIV Golf Nashville will be disqualified (with prize money and points retroactively adjusted).
McDowell explained in a social media post that he took “a generic Vicks nasal decongestant without realizing it might be on the banned list.” The 45-year-old Northern Irishman said he was struggling with severe congestion that was affecting his sleep.
“In an effort to manage it, I used a generic Vicks nasal decongestant without realizing it might be on the banned list. As a professional golfer, I understand the importance of checking all medications and the option to apply for a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE). Unfortunately I did not think to do this due to the over-the-counter nature of this medicine, and I deeply regret the oversight. I fully accept the sanctions imposed by LIV,” he wrote.
In his social media post, McDowell took a shot at “some other tours” for not enforcing the rules as thoroughly as LIV.
“LIV’s Anti-Doping Policy is designed to be thorough and transparent. Unlike some other tours, LIV enforces these rules rigorously, which made this situation particularly challenging for me. However, I respect the need for these rules and penalties — they are essential for maintaining the integrity of the sport,” he wrote. “I’m proud of my 22-year career and the way I’ve conducted myself throughout it. Now, I’m focused on moving forward and getting back on the golf course. I look forward to seeing everyone at LIV Chicago.”
LIV Golf Chicago, which begins Sept. 13, is the next event McDowell would be eligible to play.
McDowell’s vacancy on Smash GC will be filled by a to-be-confirmed reserve player at LIV Golf Greenbrier, Aug. 16-18.
There are 11 LIV players who won’t try to qualify for the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
U.S. Open qualifying is just around the corner, and LIV Golf players were asked about their plans ahead of this week’s event in Singapore.
During a Smash GC press conference featuring captain Brooks Koepka and his teammates Jason Kokrak, Graeme McDowell and Talor Gooch, both McDowell and Kokrak revealed they were playing in qualifiers for both the U.S. Open at Pinehurst (June 13-16) and Open Championship at Royal Troon (July 18-21).
“I personally am. Doing the U.S. Open in Columbus and then the Open in Manchester,” said Kokrak. “I plan on playing both of them.”
“Yeah, I’m the same. I’ve entered for both qualifiers. I think I’m in Florida Monday of Houston and then just south of London the Tuesday of the International Series Morocco, which I’ll go and play right after the Open qualifying series,” added McDowell. “Obviously I’ll be pulling hard (Koepka) in a couple weeks’ time (at the PGA Championship) but obviously trying to get into a couple majors myself.”
Gooch was short and sour with his response: “I’m not.”
After he was denied a spot in last year’s U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club after the USGA altered its exemption criteria, instead of fighting to try to earn his way again, Gooch tucked tail and decided to play the martyr instead of a qualifier. He’s doing the same again this year.
As of Thursday, 36 LIV players have entered U.S. Open qualifying while 11 have not. Eight players are already exempt into the third men’s major of the year: Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Jon Rahm, Cameron Smith, Martin Kaymer and Tyrrell Hatton.
Players like Mickelson and DeChambeau have called for the majors to create special exemption categories for LIV players, who have been fighting an uphill battle with regard to access to majors seeing as LIV events don’t receive Official World Golf Ranking points. The league has since pulled its application from consideration, all but closing that door as a way into the biggest tournaments on the calendar. Past champions of the Masters and the PGA have at least two set in stone, but the pair of Opens may require some effort from here on out.
While some players like Joaquin Niemann have continued to fight to play their way in, others expect to be given handouts. Golf has always been a meritocracy, you receive what you earn. The U.S. Open qualifier number shows the majority of LIV players understand that fact, but a handful still need a reminder.
Koepka replaced a relegated player with one who was lucky to keep his LIV Golf League spot for 2024.
Brooks Koepka’s brother, Chase, was relegated from the LIV Golf League for the 2024 season after finishing 48th in the season-long standings during the 2023 season.
How did Brooks replace his struggling brother? By signing Graeme McDowell, who finished just three spots clear of relegation in 42nd last season. McDowell finished inside the top 20 just three times in 2023 and spent the vast majority of the year in the back half of the 48-player fields. The 44-year-old won four times on the PGA Tour and earned 11 victories on the DP World Tour. His greatest triumph came in 2010 at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
Smash GC made a quick exit during the 2023 LIV Golf Team Championship and Koepka’s first signing doesn’t begin to address his squad’s problems. He still has Matthew Wolff on the roster, a player he publicly criticized on multiple occasions last season, and McDowell is virtually the same caliber of player as the one he’s replacing. Simply put, Brooks and Jason Kokrak, the fourth member of the team, aren’t good enough to carry the squad in 2024.
There’s still time for Koepka to trade Wolff, but after his critical comments, he shouldn’t expect much of a return for the 24-year-old former college star who has struggled with consistency since making the jump to professional golf.
“It’s exciting just to be a part of something new.”
There has been no shortage of drama, excitement, storylines and plenty more since LIV Golf made its debut last June at Centurion Club in London.
Players choosing to stay on the PGA Tour or go to LIV Golf. Some taking jabs at one another, back and forth. Numerous legal battles. Seemingly every day, there was something newsworthy related to LIV Golf and its attempt to thrust itself into the golf ecosystem.
This week, LIV Golf returned to Centurion Club, where 2023 LIV Golf London begins Friday. It’s the return to the place where LIV Golf began, and it’s the first time LIV has played a course twice.
Last season, it was the first of eight events. This year, it’s the ninth of 14. Although the future of LIV Golf is up in the air since the announcement of the agreement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the financial backer of LIV, players and executives are marching forward as if the circuit will continue.
Only time will tell.
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There are 23 golfers in the field this week who participated in the first LIV event last year. Some of those players and others reflected on the first year of LIV Golf ahead of kicking off Friday’s event in London. Here’s what they had to say.
LIV golfers are peddling a narrative of success achieved and traction gained, despite scant supporting evidence.
Edward Bernays was considered the godfather of American propaganda, the dark art politely referred to in corporate circles as public relations and marketing. During a lengthy career—he died at age 103—Bernays successfully sold women on the idea that smoking was preferable to eating and that Lucky Strikes were to be brandished as feminist ‘torches of freedom’ (while privately imploring his wife to quit). Later, he leveraged manufactured populism and credulous journalists to warn of a communist threat in Guatemala, eventually helping engineer a CIA-backed coup that installed a dictator more friendly to the interests of another client, United Fruit Company.
“A rubber stamp inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of tabloids and the profundities of history, but quite innocent of original thought,” was how Bernays summarized his methodology.
Decades later, the tools in a propagandist’s Pandora’s Box remain largely unchanged. The contriving of phony public support may be more technologically advanced, but access-hungry stenographers and rote messengers can be had for a few riyal. Well, not quite that cheaply, at least not for LIV Golf. And yet the Saudi-backed circuit’s attempt to simulate buzz for its season finale at Donald Trump’s Doral Resort in Florida was executed with a predictable clumsiness that belies its budget. The more money Greg Norman spends, the less Crown Prince MBS seems to get in return.
Friday brought a deluge of social media posts by players declaring their happiness, excitement, gratitude and amazement at LIV’s growth and game-changing impact. Their dispatches bore all the spontaneity and authenticity of hostage tapes, albeit from willing and well-compensated captives.
“What an amazing year it’s been. Game-changing,” wrote Sergio Garcia.
“Incredible to see LIV grow the sport,” added Louis Oosthuizen.
“This was an amazing year and can’t wait for the next years to come. I’m super honored to be part of Fireballs.” That from Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra. Fireballs refers to his team and not to the missiles his employer has been raining upon Yemeni civilians since the Spaniard was 14 years old.
“I am so proud and honored to be part of the Niblicks,” said Bubba Watson, referring to the team that owns him but for which he hasn’t actually played due to injury. “It’s been an amazing year. Five months ago to where we are today—LIV Golf is taking off. Yeah, I said it. LIV Golf is taking off.”
“Making the jump into a start up product like LIV and seeing it grow so much, so quickly has been exciting and rewarding to be part of,” wrote Graeme McDowell. His followers seemed unconvinced. “Are they literally standing over you with the sabre when ‘you’ write this crap?” one replied.
Thus golfers are rendered bots, peddling en masse a narrative of success achieved and traction gained, despite scant supporting evidence that LIV is in fact “taking off.”
The worldwide viewing audience for LIV events is often comparable to the number of Super Bowl viewers who might die of natural causes before the halftime show, and that in turn is a multiple of the number of spectators on site. Tickets to the game-changing event that’s growing the sport this weekend in Miami were being sold—or, more accurately, were available—for $4 on the secondary market. There’s no TV deal, despite LIV negotiating to buy time on Fox Sports for its product, and no major sponsors eager to don a hazmat suit and climb aboard the Good Ship Shark. Those touting LIV as a rousing success are paid by LIV, or aspire to be. Beyond that congregation, believers are harder to come by.
A day may arrive when LIV becomes the success that its paid endorsers and would-be bootlickers claim it already is. But for now, the only storyline it has is money. That grants LIV staying power—so long as it suits the whims of its isolated, mercurial benefactor—but sports fans tend not to grant allegiance to cash-centric enterprises (Jay Monahan would be advised to note that this is as true of FedEx Cup payouts as it is of LIV purses).
This weekend’s conclusion of the LIV season won’t herald an interval in the accompanying theatrics. Expect rumors of fresh defections, more threats of litigation, increased bluster, more frequent claims of conspiracies. But there will also be a steady drumbeat for a deal to end the rancor. It won’t emanate only from those with no stomach for a fight and who want an exit ramp to easy street, but also from industry figures who sense an opportunity to suction Saudi money and who need to first position their avarice as an act of conciliation for the good of the sport.
Beware the approaching troupe of ethical acrobats who try to convince us that long-term commerce can’t be hostage to short-term concerns, like bonesaw murders and rights abuses. They represent the final push of Saudi propaganda, outwardly respectable moral ciphers whose aim is to exhaust doubters and critics to a point where accommodations can be reached and checks cashed. A long winter lies ahead.
Rory addressed a wide array of topics in Guardian interview: “This ‘us versus them’ thing has gotten way out of control already.”
Rory McIlroy returned to World No. 1 on Sunday and showed why he arguably is the best interview subject in professional golf, if not all sport.
Speaking to Ewan Murray of The Guardian, McIlroy touched on a wide range of topics. Here are some of the juiciest quotes:
On the ongoing civil war between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf: “This ‘us versus them’ thing has gotten way out of control already. If the two entities keep doubling down in both directions, it is only going to become irreparable. We are going to have a fractured sport for a long time. That is no good for anyone.”
“The word ‘Official’ has to go away from OWGR if they don’t take care of the players out here.”
Graeme McDowell didn’t mince words when he addressed LIV Golf’s ongoing quest to earn Official World Golf Ranking points.
“We all agree and I think most people in the world of golf would agree that the field out here is to a certain strength now where it’s impossible to ignore the talent that’s out here,” said McDowell ahead of LIV’s final regular season event this week at Royal Greens Country Club in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“The word ‘Official’ has to go away from OWGR if they don’t take care of the players out here.”
McDowell’s argument centered around Dustin Johnson, who wrapped up LIV’s season-long individual championship last week in Bangkok to claim the $18 million bonus prize on top of the $12 million he made over the previous six events thanks to five top-10 finishes and a win in Boston (not to mention four straight team victories worth an additional $750,000 per event).
“If (Johnson’s) world ranking is inaccurate, then the whole system is inaccurate,” said McDowell.
“We’re going to get world ranking points. Just right now it’s another way,” added Johnson. “If we wait too long, all of our rankings are going to drop so much, it’s not going to matter. We are hoping (the OWGR) do the right thing, and all of us hope to hear in the next week or so and this will all go away.”
McDowell and Johnson were joined by Harold Varner III for their pre-event press conference in the Kingdom – the trio is the three past winners of the Saudi International event held at Royal Greens – and the 32-year-old who’s known for honestly speaking his mind had a different take on LIV’s struggle to earn points.
“For me, I think we knew what we were getting into. I think it’s easy to sit here and say what could happen, what should happen. But obviously, for me, I knew what was going to happen. Like, it wasn’t going to be easy,” he explained. “I think the people at LIV did an unbelievable job … because I don’t know about the check marks. Honestly, I could care less. I knew exactly what was going to happen. I knew what could happen in my career and I accept that.
“I’ve had a great time out here. So the world ranking thing, it’s just been a part of golf for so long, and now all of a sudden some feathers have been ruffled. It’s funny, though, I think. But it is what it is.”
“I’m not disciplined enough to stay off my social media,” McDowell said of his responses to LIV’s online backlash.
BEDMINSTER, N.J. — You know those signs in warehouses that say, It’s been (X-number) of days since last accident/mistake? Graeme McDowell needs one of those for his Twitter outbursts.
It’s been nine days since the 43-year-old clapped back at someone throwing shade his way on the social media platform — where he said he’d give a heckler 10 shots a side on their home course — which may be a record given his recent history on the platform the last few months since joining the LIV Golf Invitational Series.
The Northern Irishman just can’t help himself sometimes.
“Yeah, it still bothers me because I’m not disciplined enough to stay off my social media,” McDowell said of the backlash he and his colleagues have faced for joining the Greg Norman-led and Saudi Arabia-funded series. “Haters are gonna hate. Keyboard warriors are always going to be there and that is what it is. I’m not used to it. And like I said, I haven’t done a good job staying away from it.”
McDowell praised his wife, Kristin, for being his rock over the last few months. She reads every article written about LIV and her husband, but she doesn’t always pass that info along, which he says is for the best.
“I care more about what (the media) think than I care about what the Twitter world thinks, because I know they’re a bunch of idiots,” McDowell explained. “But I know the people writing up on me are a bunch of smart people at times, so that stuff hurts more. But again, it’s only opinion sometimes. It’s not facts. It’s just opinion.”
“It’s been hard. It’s been a hard couple months, but I really believed in London I was in the right place,” McDowell said despite the shellacking he and others have taken for joining the controversial series backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. “That opinion has only strengthened now the last six weeks.”
The 2010 U.S. Open champion said his confidence in LIV grew at the first event in London because of the staging and the way LIV took care of the players. That confidence is only growing the more players that join the series.
“We’re kind of brothers in arms, if you like, because of the negativity that’s come out against us all,” said McDowell. “Everyone’s experienced that in their own way and it brings us all closer together.”
“But I’m getting better. I’m coming through,” he said of his newfound outlook on the situation. “I’m very happy where I am. I think this tour is only going to go from strength to strength.”
But we can still expect him to put some haters in their place from time to time, right?
Those who complained about the PGA Tour no longer have the luxury of picking their schedule.
“Free agency is finally coming to golf,” Greg Norman proclaimed at the debut of LIV Golf last month.
“I feel so happy for the fact that we’ve brought free agency to the game of golf,” he said on another occasion.
To hear Pat Perez, one of the LIV signees, tell it, he’s been rescued from being an indentured servant with the PGA Tour – albeit one who earned more than $28 million during his career.
“I missed my son’s birth last year. August 18, I get a call my wife’s going into labor. I’m in Jersey. I’m getting ready to start the FedEx playoffs. I’m 116 on the list. I can’t leave. I can’t miss it. I can’t get back. I can’t get there and back without spending 150 grand on a private flight. I’m not doing that. So I had to suck on it and I had to miss my son’s birth,” Perez said. “And, you know, fortunately, I made the cut and I moved up my status by playing all right, but it still sucked.”
Only thing is Perez didn’t actually have to miss the birth of his son. He chose to play the Northern Trust. He already had wrapped up his Tour card for the next season by finishing in the top 125. If he wanted to qualify for the BMW Championship the following week (top 70) or Tour Championship (top 30), he would have needed to continue on because he hadn’t played well enough that season to guarantee his spot. Tour veteran Billy Horschel took exception to what Perez had to say.
“PGA Tour says 15 events minimum, all you have to do is play 15 events and you keep your card in those 15 events then that’s fine. If you want to play better or you want to play more so you get a chance to win the FedExCup, so be it. So be it. No one has made you play that first Playoff event to go miss family obligations. No one has,” Horschel said. “Yes, we are independent contractors; we do sign a contract with the PGA Tour to meet certain requirements of the PGA Tour. But we have the opportunity to make our schedule.”
Horschel noted that by the time he played this week at the Genesis Scottish Open and the British Open next week, he will have been gone for five consecutive weeks from his family.
“I made that decision to not see my wife and kids for five weeks. Am I crying about it? No,” he said. “I understand. I’m living my dream trying to play golf professionally and support my family financially.”
Here’s the thing: Perez was an independent contractor; now he’s an employee. This is not an employer you want to piss off. He’s signed a contract to play in all eight LIV Golf events. Next year, that number has been announced to increase to 14. Has Norman really achieved this 30-plus-year-old dream of his?
The PGA Tour and the Europe-based DP World Tour both declined requests from members for releases to compete in LIV events and have since punished players who have violated its tour regulations. In one of the rich ironies, the same players who have said they want to play less have gone to court so they can play more on the DP World Tour. (By the way, I love the nickname for them – ‘The Sour 16.’)
“We want to coexist” with “all the current ecosystems within the game of golf, and we want to do that with the PGA Tour,” Norman told Fox News last month. How exactly would that look in his fantasy world? “I would say support the players … and give their members the opportunity to have other places to go,” he said. “They’re independent contractors. They have every right to do that.”
Graeme McDowell watches his drive at the 10th tee during the 2022 JP McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor in Limerick, Ireland. (Photo: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)
Except Norman’s circuit prevented Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell from playing in the Horizon Irish Open. Apparently, this notion of his doesn’t work both ways.
The circumstances of Graeme McDowell, who signed with LIV Golf, indicate that Norman isn’t allowing players to freely go and play elsewhere. McDowell, who had agreed to play the Horizon Irish Open, a tournament he had played the past 20 years anyway, in order to get a waiver to compete in the Saudi International in February. But he reneged on the deal because it conflicted with last week’s LIV event in Portland.
“I tried to be fair and I tried to be open with them and put all my cards on the table. Of course, I was very disappointed that the second event fell against the Irish Open. I would have loved to have been there last week,” McDowell told the Irish Independent. “The only thing I can say is I have to be all-in. I’m 43 and 380th in the world. My value to these guys is only so much. I have to try to commit the best I can to the LIV Tour, and that meant not obviously being able to play last week.”
He added: “Listen, I’d love to be back at the Irish Open next year and like I say I can only apologize to the Irish golf fans that I wasn’t there last week. And like I say, unfortunately, I had pretty good reasons for it regards what I have to commit to with the LIV Tour. I have to be all-in with those events. I can’t just dip my toe in.”
And here’s the rub. The same guys who have complained about how hard they had it on the PGA Tour no longer have the luxury of picking their schedule. They have been bought and paid for quite handsomely, and now have to show up when and where they are told (here’s hoping none of the wives of American players go into labor during the two-week swing to Bangkok and Jeddah).
Had McDowell still been an independent contractor, do you think he would’ve missed his homeland’s national open? When he was growing up, do you think he dreamed of winning the Irish Open or a 54-hole shotgun start in Portland?
Free agency in golf – before long it may have some players wanting to fire their agents Freddie Freeman style.
While Poulter could be headed to litigation, Graeme McDowell resigned his membership to “keep the moral high ground.”
Ian Poulter won’t surrender his PGA Tour membership without a fight.
While several of the notable LIV Golf players suspended by the PGA Tour already had informed the Tour that they were giving up their membership – including Kevin Na, Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia – Poulter said on Thursday that he elected not to resign his membership.
When informed that PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan had lived up to his word and suspended 17 players who had “willfully violated its regulations” by playing in this week’s LIV Golf Invitational Series debut near London, Poulter told the media, “I will appeal, for sure. It makes no sense given how I have played the game of golf for all this time. I didn’t resign my membership because I don’t feel I have done anything wrong. I have played all over the world for 25 years. This is no different.
“I am committed to playing around the world like I have done for so many years so it is a shame if they view this as different. Of course, it’s going to be sad, when you feel you haven’t done anything wrong and want to promote the game of golf. It’s a power struggle and it’s just disappointing.”
Poulter made his comments following the first round of the inaugural event of eight tournaments scheduled for the LIV Golf Invitational Series, which is funded by the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth investment fund of Saudi Arabia and one of the largest in the world. It has backed and is financing LIV Golf Investments, the parent company of LIV Golf.
While Poulter could be headed down the road of future litigation with the PGA Tour, Graeme McDowell explained that he resigned his membership “out of an abundance of caution” and to “keep the moral high ground.”
“I actually resigned about 30 minutes before I teed it up today,” McDowell said. “It was a tough decision. I wanted to keep the moral high ground and kind of remain a member of the Tour because I really didn’t feel like I needed to resign nor that I should have to resign. It was a very difficult decision. I kind of resigned out of an abundance of caution honestly because I feel like it puts me in a less litigious situation regards getting drawn into anything unnecessarily. But like I say, I didn’t want to resign. I love the PGA Tour. It’s been great to me. This is not about the PGA Tour is a bad tour. This is about being able to add on additional opportunities to my golf career. Really hard.
“Unfortunately this is going to be short-term pain, but I think all the players that are here this week have only been strengthened in their confidence that we are making the right decisions here because we feel like the execution level that we’re seeing here, the passion, the love of the game of golf that these guys have at LIV, that’s why we’re here. I feel like confidence has been strengthened. Even in the face of consequences which we knew were kind of on the horizon.”
When told of the ban from playing the Tour, including sponsor invites, Sergio Garcia claimed it didn’t apply to him because he was no longer a member.
“That’s one of the reasons why I resigned because I didn’t want to get into my legal battles,” Garcia said. “I’m very happy to be here for many reasons. It’s going to allow me to do what I love, which is playing golf. It’s going to allow me to see my family more, spend more time with my kids, 4 and 2, spend as much time as I can, and I make a good living doing it. For me it’s a win/win. I’m excited for what’s coming. Excited to finally be here playing and see the reaction of the people and the players and everything. So it’s very exciting.”
Garica confirmed that he has no intention, however, of giving up his membership to the DP World Tour.
“Why haven’t I? Because I would like to still be a member,” he said.
Asked if he still hopes to participate in future Ryder Cups, he said, “Definitely. First of all, I’m European, I love the European Tour. I played it for 23 years. Even though I played on the PGA TOUR, I always made sure that I kept my membership in Europe because I love The European Tour, and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to stay a member of the European Tour.
And obviously we’re going to have to wait and see what the European Tour does. But I definitely would like to keep my membership there, play at least my minimum, and you know, get my — as good a chance as I can to make The Ryder Cup Team because I love that event. But I guess we’ll see. We’ll wait and see what happens over there.”
McDowell shared Garcia’s hope that Keith Pelley, who heads the DP World Tour, wouldn’t simply follow in lockstep with the PGA Tour and ban the participants in LIV Golf from competing on their home circuit. The second LIV event happens to conflict with the DP Tour’s Irish Open.
“Will Keith follow suit? I hope he doesn’t,” McDowell said. “I think he has a fantastic opportunity here with a lot of European players and European Tour players that would like to subsidize their schedule with other events, especially if we are not allowed to play on the PGA Tour. I really hope The European Tour makes a good decision. They may have to follow suit with what Jay and the PGA Tour are doing, so watch this space.”
