Tag: Wentworth Golf Club

Family time? Tommy Fleetwood wasn’t kidding — and now he’s off to a fast start at 2022 BMW PGA Championship

Fleetwood skipped the FedEx Cup playoffs to spend some quality time with family, instantly igniting rumors.

When Tommy Fleetwood says he’s eager to spend more time with his family, apparently, he means it.

After skipping the purse-rich FedEx Cup playoffs to spend some quality time with family — which instantly ignited rumors that he was destined to flip to LIV Golf — Fleetwood recently committed to the PGA Tour’s Zozo Championship in Japan, which will take place from October 13 to 16.

And when he finally got back to playing on the DP World Tour, marking his first start since the Open Championship, the Englishman lit up the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England. Fleetwood made eight birdies and no bogeys en route to the early lead after posting 64 Thursday at the BMW PGA Championship.

Paired with Shane Lowry and Justin Rose, Fleetwood took advantage of wet conditions in his first appearance since his mother died in July. Lowry also shined, firing a 66 to sit just two shots off the early lead.

“I was happy to be playing. Happy that I was playing with Shane and Justin,” Fleetwood said. “Sometimes it’s about more than the score. It’s about the people you spend the journey with. It’s weird, really, but it’s nice being back.”

Fleetwood, who currently sits at 29th in the Official World Golf Ranking, said the lengthy layoff was healthy, but made him feel rusty. However, he looked much like the player who finished T-4 in each of his last two starts, the 150th Open Championship and the Scottish Open.

“Six weeks felt like a really long time. It’s felt like two years. You never quite know how you’re going to come out and play, no matter how well you might have practiced or anything,” he said. “Playing in a tournament is very, very different, and I’m always amazed at Tiger Woods just turning up. When he turns up at the Masters for the first time in however long, he cruises around, making the cut, and I think that’s one of the most impressive things.

“But it was nice to be back.”

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Billy Horschel to some LIV golfers at BMW PGA Championship: ‘You’ve never played this tournament, you’ve never supported the DP World Tour. Why are you here?’

“They don’t know. They don’t care. They don’t know the history of this event.”

DP World Tour members like Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood are eligible for the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth after their suspensions for playing in the inaugural event of the Saudi-backed breakaway were temporarily stayed on appeal.

American Talor Gooch and Mexico’s Abraham Ancer are in the field thanks to being in the world’s top 60, but Horschel believes they are being “hypocritical” in chasing ranking points having never shown any interest in the event before.

“Even though Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter have been stalwarts for the European Tour, I don’t think those guys really should be here,” Billy Horschel said.

“I honestly don’t think that the American guys who haven’t supported the Tour should be here. Abraham Ancer, Talor Gooch. … you’ve never played this tournament, you’ve never supported the DP World Tour. Why are you here?

“You are here for one reason only and that’s to try to get world ranking points because you don’t have it (on LIV Golf).

“It’s hypocritical because of what some of these guys have said when they said they wanted to play less golf. It’s pretty hypocritical to come over here and play outside LIV when your big thing was to spend more time with family and want to play less golf.

“I wouldn’t call Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter hypocrites because they never said they wanted to play less. The guys that have publicly stated they want to play less, those are the hypocrites.”

Horschel believes that players were “naive” to believe that they would not be suspended by the PGA Tour for joining LIV and that some failed to adequately weigh up the pros and cons.

“Maybe those guys aren’t smart enough to think on their own and maybe their agents gave them bad information,” Horschel added.

“I know for a fact that certain agents just gave certain players bad information and some of those players are ticked (off) that they listened to their agents on that.

“Some of these agents led these guys down a bad road. They didn’t give them the entire information and they didn’t play devil’s advocate the way they should have.

“I guarantee if I was in their seat, my agent would have played devil’s advocate, or I would have played devil’s advocate. We did talk about what if LIV did come to us, what are the pros and cons.

“And we made a list. There was a lot of cons on that LIV Golf side and very few on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour. There’s a lot more pros on that side.”

The presence of the LIV players in the field has contributed to lower-ranked DP World Tour members missing out, with Rahm’s friend Alfredo Garcia-Heredia currently the first reserve.

2022 BMW PGA Championship
Jon Rahm talks to the media during a press conference ahead of the 2022 BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth Golf Club in Virginia Water, England. (Photo: Warren Little/Getty Images)

“There are many players that have been key for European Tour golf and the Ryder Cup that have a lot of collective years on the European Tour,” Rahm said. “Them coming, I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing.

“What I don’t understand is some players that have never shown any interest in the European Tour, have never shown any interest in playing this event, being given an opportunity just because they can get world ranking points and hopefully make majors next year.

“A perfect example, a good friend of mine is the first one out on the entry list right now.

“It doesn’t hurt me but it does bug me that somebody who has played over 20 DP World events this year cannot be given the opportunity to play a flagship event because some people that earned it, to an extent, are being given an opportunity when they couldn’t care any less about the event.

“They don’t know. They don’t care. They don’t know the history of this event.”

Two-time major winner Martin Kaymer withdrew from the tournament last week, telling Golf Digest: “I don’t need to go to a place where, feel-wise, you’re not that welcome. They don’t say it, but (it’s there).”

The BMW PGA starts Thursday. Horschel is grouped with Rory McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick. Rahm is playing with Tyrrell Hatton and Viktor Hovland.

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Get ready for LIV Golf/PGA Tour tensions to hit a high this week as all parties meet at the BMW PGA Championship

Golf’s season of discontent rumbles on.

Rory McIlroy’s thrilling victory in the Tour Championship was an absorbing end to the campaign in the United States, but golf’s season of discontent rumbles on.

This week at Wentworth Club in Surrey, England, the DP World Tour’s flagship event — the BMW PGA Championship — takes center stage and will feature 18 players who have all defected to the LIV Golf Series. It could be uncomfortably awkward as the moment this scribe realized I had to wear speedos in a French public swimming pool. Sacre bleu indeed.

The likes of Abraham Ancer, Jason Kokrak, Kevin Na and Talor Gooch, who had hardly shown much interest in playing in Europe before, are all in the field now on the basis of their top-60-in-the-world exemption.

They need to top up their world ranking points – LIV Golf hasn’t been awarded world ranking status yet – but it must be mighty galling for some proper DP World Tour loyalists who miss out on the old European circuit’s showpiece amid this general tumult.

As for McIlroy’s views on the rebels pitching up in the leafy Surrey stockbroker belt? “I hate it, I really do,” said the Northern Irishman with his usual open and honest assessment of affairs. “It’s going to be hard for me to stomach going to Wentworth and seeing 18 of them there. That just doesn’t sit right with me.”

McIlroy has emerged as the statesman of the status quo. While gushing descriptions by some cooing observers of him being the savior of golf were somewhat hysterical in the aftermath of his timely win at East Lake, McIlroy’s box office appeal is the one thing money can’t buy. And LIV Golf certainly can’t buy his star attraction.

Of course, Cameron Tringale, a player who has earned upwards of $17 million on the PGA Tour but has never won in 338 events, recently decided to make the leap.

“After much reflection, prayer, and conversations with trusted advisors I have made the decision not to renew my Tour membership for next year and join LIV Golf,” wrote the deeply religious Tringale in a lengthy epistle of justification.

The Lord, it seems, will provide. Or at least the Saudi Public Investment Fund will. These are fascinating times.

While Lee Westwood and Eddie Pepperell were embroiling themselves in some tetchy parrying and jousting on social media — Pepperell told LIV rebel Westwood to “take your cake and enjoy it in the corner” — the PGA Tour top brass were unveiling a vast array of money-sodden, golden-handcuffs-style initiatives designed to keep the best players tied to the circuit and ensure the elite will play the elite on a more regular basis in a series of “elevated” events.

A few withering responses followed, with Westwood claiming the changes were nothing more than a replica of the LIV Golf formula. “It’s just a copy of what LIV is doing, there are a lot of hypocrites out there,” he said in an interview with Golf Digest. Any chance of some kind of compromise between the warring factions is about as likely as getting your bin emptied.

Are these changes by the PGA Tour too little too late? Well, they have certainly been wounded by a series of high-profile resignations and possibly underestimated the LIV Golf threat but it could be enough to lock the door before a few more horses bolt. Cameron Young, the rising star who was second in The Open, had been expected to jump ship, for instance, but the various carrots now being dangled by the PGA Tour have, apparently, convinced him to stay put.

Those aforementioned “elevated” tour events will be worth $20 million.

A LIV event is $25 million but it comes with the hefty price of reputational damage and the general scrutiny and condemnation that greets just about every defector. Now that the PGA Tour prize funds are kicking the backside of the LIV pots, those swithering may just decide it ain’t worth the hassle.

The fractured, disjointed scene at the top of a sport blinded by money remains a rather unedifying spectacle, though.

The players on either side of this divide are getting richer and richer but the game is poorer for all the squabbling and self-serving haverings. In this ongoing battle of attrition, it will be a while before a winner emerges.

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Report: LIV Golf members have been asked to not wear LIV logos at BMW PGA Championship

There are nearly 20 LIV members set to tee it up at Wentworth in September.

Eighteen members of the LIV Golf Series are set to tee it up at Wentworth next week for the BMW PGA Championship.

Although the DP World Tour and PGA Tour have an “operational joint venture partnership,” LIV players have not been banned from the European circuit as they have from the U.S. league.

Several of the PGA Tour’s biggest backers will also be playing the DP World Tour’s flagship event, including Rory McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick.

“It’s going to be odd seeing certain people at Wentworth. That is going to be a bit weird, and obviously, it’s a little bit disappointing. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens,” Fitzpatrick said at the Tour Championship. “Obviously they’re (the DP World Tour) not quite in as strong a position as the PGA Tour are in terms of regulations. I guess we’ll just have to see how it plays out.”

According to a report by ESPN, LIV members have been asked by DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley to not wear LIV logos during the BMW tournament.

“Out of respect for our partners, our broadcasters and your fellow competitors, we would kindly ask you to consider not wearing LIV Golf-branded apparel during your participation at Wentworth,” Pelley said in an email memo sent to players.

They’ve also been alerted they’re not required to play in the pro-am.

“It’s going to be hard for me to stomach going to Wentworth in a couple of weeks’ time and seeing 18 of them there. That just doesn’t sit right with me,” McIlroy said at East Lake.

Saudi Arabia has been accused of wide-ranging human rights abuses, including politically motivated killings, torture, forced disappearances and inhumane treatment of prisoners. And members of the royal family and Saudi government were accused of involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist.

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