In the absence of a merger that he considers impossible, the three-time Major winner and former Ryder Cup captain imagines the establishment of cross-invitations between the two camps on the various tournaments of the circuits.
And thus fuel the sporting rivalry of the best players on the planet, as is the case four times a year during the Grand Slam events.
Harrington, statements
Despite talks that seem more serious than ever, Padraig Harrington does not believe in a merger between, on the one hand, the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour and on the other with LIV Golf supported by the very powerful Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia.
But the Irishman, three-time Major winner, has the solution to bring the different entities closer together: establish a few invitations on the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and LIV Golf. He believes that by having LIV players play in other events and having an invited team of PGA Tour players in a LIV event, it would help create a huge buzz around these tournaments.
“Ideally, for me, I would suggest that every PGA Tour and DP World Tour event has four invitations for LIV players, and every LIV event has four invitations for an international team,” Harrington said on the sidelines of the Irish Open in Northern Ireland this week at Royal County Down Golf Club.
“That way we’ll have enough contacts for Jon Rahm to play on the European Tour and Abraham Ancer to play in the Mexican Open”. “The Majors have never been better because of these rivalries, so why can’t we have that this week? Why can’t we have a few players, like we had with Tyrrell (Hatton) who created a buzz two weeks ago at the British Masters?”.
Because of the variety of similar names, it is important to explain what the PGA Tour does and does not run. The PGA Tour does not run any of the four major tournaments or the Ryder Cup. The PGA of America, not the PGA Tour, runs the PGA Championship, the Senior PGA Championship, and co-runs the Ryder Cup with the PGA European Tour.
The PGA Tour is not involved in the women’s tours in the United States, which are controlled by the LPGA. The PGA Tour is also not the official governing body of the game of golf in the United States; that is the role of the USGA, which also runs the U.S.
Open. What the PGA Tour does do is run all the other golf events week in and week out, including The Players Championship and the FedEx Cup, as well as the biennial Presidents Cup.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)