Padraig Harrington and Jon Rahm walk a fairway during the 2022 Masters.
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The legends of golf? They are also golf enthusiasts. That makes them like you. They want the best players in the world to play more often than just a few times a year.
Who are they? This week: Luke Donald and Padraig Harrington, playing in the Irish Open and weighing in on their fatigue with the current state of men’s golf.
Donald, the European Ryder Cup captain, has several players (Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton) from his winning 2023 team appealing sanctions against earn their way into DP World Tour events to ensure they can be resolved next year. “I think we’re all very patient right now,” Donald said Thursday. “It’s been 15 months since Yasir and Jay Monahan got together. “I think it’s been frustrating for a lot of players to see how slowly everything has gone, and I’m sure it’s been frustrating for Jon (Rahm) as well.”
Why? Because Rahm earns a suspension and a fine for every LIV Golf event he plays while still a DPWT member. Nine months after he committed to LIV Golf and 15 months after the PGA Tour and the Saudi PIF signed a framework agreement, Rahm isn’t exactly experiencing the best of both worlds. This doesn’t just upset him; it also worries Padraig Harrington.
Irishman and last admitted to World Golf Hall of Fame sticks to the rules – he believes Rahm should do what he can to support the DP World Tour – but he also wants Rahm to be on Europe’s Ryder Cup team within a year, no matter what. During times that continue to be tense, Harrington has found a solution.
“Ideally for me I would suggest that every PGA Tour and European Tour have four invitations for LIV players,” Harrington began. “And every LIV event should have four invitations for an international team. That way we have enough crossover that we can get Jon Rahm to play the European Tour and get Abraham Ancer to play the Mexican Open. If four PGA Tour guys come in, it’s not like they’re going to be welcomed with open arms, so it creates buzz in their events.”
Currently, no LIV golfers are allowed to play PGA Tour events. They are not allowed to play without a sponsor, or enter through a Monday qualifier. Likewise, there is no place for PGA Tour players to be included in LIV’s 54-player team tournaments.
Negotiations to resolve the rift in the men’s game are ongoing, and one of the main topics to be resolved is the pathways for some LIV players to return to the status quo they left behind. Harrington sees some immediate cross-pollination as a move to rise.
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“If we had four LIV players this week,” Harrington continued, “they would focus on them and people would watch it. Some people would want them to do well, and some people would want them to But it would create a bit of a buzz; and conversely, if four PGA Tour players showed up at an LIV event, they wouldn’t want that team to win, they wouldn’t want foreigners. , so that creates a bit of buzz for them.”
By now it’s become clear that getting the best LIV and PGA Tour players competing against each other creates buzz. of Jon Rahm-Brooks Koepka 2023 The Masters duel saw TV ratings clock in at their best since 2018. This year’s US Open clash on Sunday between Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau was rated as the best East Coast US Open in more than a decade.
“The majors have never been better because of those rivalries, so why couldn’t we have that this week?” Harrington said. “Why couldn’t we have some guys – like, I’m sure Tyrrell playing last week created quite a stir, two weeks ago at the British Masters. There will be a lot of home fans who want him to do well and then there are a lot of people who didn’t want him to do well. In the right context, that’s good.”
The way he talks about it, Harrington seems to see this moment of anxiety as an opportunity. He has thought about it a lot, he has been asked about it many times, but he knows that he is not in charge.
“That’s my take,” Harrington said, before adding an important qualifier. “I am not sitting at the top table. That’s why I’m sitting in the media center telling you my solution.”
