TUCSON, Ariz. — There appears to be no end in sight to the PGA Tour-LIV Golf rift and this past weekend was just another example of the prolonged standoff.
It was one of the four weekends in 2024 where a LIV event overlapped a signature event. There are 12 times in all this year where the two leagues will intersect.
Scottie Scheffler won the Arnold Palmer Invitational – a PGA Tour signature event that took some criticism for only having 69 players – and banked $4 million.
Meanwhile, Abraham Ancer hoisted a trophy after winning the LIV Golf Hong Kong event and pocketed $4 million.
“It doesn’t look like there will be any sort of golfing marriage in the near future,” said Padraig Harrington ahead of the 2024 Cologuard Classic on the PGA Tour Champions, who had some general thoughts about what can be done in the meantime.
“Why not have it a little bit like the old European Tour-PGA Tour, where there’s a little bit of competition. Certainly it’s good for the fans when there’s rivalries.”
Harrington played both tours for several years. Nowadays he plays mostly on the Champions tour but does dabble in some PGA Tour events. He’s already played twice on the “regular” tour in 2024 and so he sees firsthand the fallout.
“I go back to the PGA Tour and I’m right in amongst it,” he said. “A lot of my friends went to LIV, so I also have a good few guys out there who I would be friendly with.
“So I can see both sides of it. You know, in the end of the day, I played the majority of my career when there was two strong tours and there was a bit of rivalry and a bit of competition, so I’m not, I wouldn’t be averse to that being in the future where there’s two tours and who doesn’t love a little bit of competition?”
It could be argued that it’s not really a competition. The PGA Tour is a league that had to make its own money to pay its bills, whereas LIV Golf has a seemingly endless cash stream from the Saudi Arabian government’s Public Investment Fund.
“I think the biggest thing going forward for the PGA Tour, there has to be some way of capping, you know, can’t just steal all our players,” he said. “Players will always make a choice individually what’s right for them, but I think the Tour has to, there’s very few businesses in this world where there isn’t some sort of a noncompete sort of clause.
But until things are sorted out, Harrington pondered, why not have some kind of system of player movement.
“I’m not against, you know, some sort of a transfer back and forth,” he said. “I’m not against having a small amount of invites, and that cuts both ways. … maybe an outside team playing every week in LIV, why not. But again, not too sure how they’re going to come together as one tour, so why not have an agreeable two tours where there’s a bit of rivalry.”