Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia played against each other in last year’s Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits
Major champions Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia are among 42 players confirmed for next week’s first $25m Saudi-funded LIV Golf Invitational.
England’s Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Richard Bland, and Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell, are in the 12-team, 48-man field for the three-day event.
Centurion Club, near London, is hosting this first tournament from 9-11 June.
Six-time major winner Phil Mickelson is not in the line-up but six more players will be announced at a later date.
American Mickelson, 51, has been linked with the breakaway event for months but said in February that he was taking a break from the game after apologising for making “reckless” comments about the Saudi Arabia regime.
The LIV tournament has attracted criticism because its money is coming from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is essentially a state savings account for the the country’s government.
That has led to accusations of sportswashing, with organisations such as Amnesty International arguing that some countries can invest in sport as a distraction from poor human rights records.
Greg Norman, LIV Golf’s chief executive, believes the tournament will “change the course” of golf history.
“Free agency has finally come to golf,” Norman said.
“This is an opportunity to start a movement that will change the course of history by bringing new and open competition to the sport we all love.
“The desire shown by the players to participate in LIV Golf demonstrates their emphatic belief in our model and confidence in what we’re building for the future.”
Other major winners signed up for the invite include Germany’s Martin Kaymer, and South Africans Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel.
Both the US-based PGA Tour and Europe-based DP World Tours turned down all requests for waivers to allow players to compete in the LIV series opener, which clashes with the PGA’s Canadian Open.
The PGA Tour said its ruling was “in the best interest of the Tour and its players” and has threatened to ban players who flout it.
Two-time major champion Norman called that decision “anti-golfer, anti-fan and anti-competitive” and said he has told the players “we’ve got your back” and that his origanisation “will defend, reimburse and represent” them should proceedings end up in the hands of lawyers.
The 67-year-old Australian had earlier told BBC Sport that his plans stretch “decades” into the future after securing an extra £1.6bn of funding, which he says will enable his breakaway invitational golf series to turn into a full 14-tournament global super league by 2024.
The $255m (£202m) series will feature six more regular season tournaments in 2022 – four in the United States, one in Thailand and one in Saudi Arabia – each having the same $25m (£20m) prize fund, meaning every leg of the series is more lucrative than the richest tournament on the PGA Tour.
Each event’s individual winner will take home $4m – by way of comparison, the PGA Tour’s flagship event, the Players Championship, earned Cam Smith $3.6m for his victory in March.
The eighth and final tournament will be the team championship at Trump National Doral Miami from 27-30 October. At the matchplay event, a $50m prize kitty will be split between the 12 teams of four, with each player receiving a 25% cut of their team’s winnings.
Every LIV event will feature a team and individual competition, with 12 captains selecting three players in a draft-style format. Each day, the teams of four will tee off at the same time on different holes in what is termed a ‘shotgun start’.
And Norman insisted he could make a success of the venture, even if the world’s best players shunned it.
“We don’t need them,” said Norman when asked whether attracting either Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy – who said there was a “morality” to not taking Saudi money – would enhance his proposition.
Amnesty International, in criticising sporting organisations for accepting Saudi Arabian investment, has pointed to the country’s poor treatment of women, its use of the death penalty and its hostility to LGBTQ+ rights.
The PIF’s chairman is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the son of Saudi Arabia’s king. The crown prince, who is known as MBS, has been accused of ordering the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist who was critical of the Saudi government.
A 2019 UN report stated that “the state of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible” for Khashoggi’s death. The Saudi government has always denied responsibility.
While promoting the new series, Norman was criticised by Amnesty International for saying “we’ve all made mistakes” as he fielded questions on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and the murder of Khashoggi.
Source by www.bbc.co.uk
