Rich Beem ‘shocked’ by PGA Tour’s reaction to Greg Norman’s LIV; Andrew Coltart: Saga will continue | Golf News

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Rich Beem and Andrew Coltart reflect on the PGA Tour’s decision not to allow players to debut to compete in LIV Golf events

Rich Beem said he was “shocked” by the PGA Tour’s decision to deny players released to go and play for Greg Norman’s LIV Golf Invitational Series, while Andrew Coltart said the story would continue.

On Tuesday, the PGA Tour denied a player’s authorization request to play the first Saudi Arabia-supported LIV Golf Invitational Series event, explaining that the decision was in the “best interest of the Tour” and players”.

In response, Norman labeled the PGA Tour as “anti-competitive” and told Sports skyBeem admitted he was surprised by the PGA Tour’s steadfast stance.

“Initially, I was shocked to have to be fair,” he said.

“I watched it and the way I read it, it said it’s not in the best interest of the PGA Tour to allow this to continue, and I’m really surprised by that.

“I was a bit surprised because I expected them to say, ‘Okay, we’ll just let them go and see what it looks like. How it goes’.”

“But obviously they don’t want a part of it.

“And it’s interesting that they cut it off so suddenly, because I think in order to understand how all of this can work and what the players think about it, I’d like to ask them to allow it and see.” What will happen, I don’t know.

“Players can come back and say it was a bad experience, I never want to do this again.

“But then again, if you look at the history between Greg Norman and the PGA Tour, and vice versa, it’s never been a healthy relationship.

“I speculate that it’s not just the LIV part of it. Because Greg Norman has something to do with it, I’ve read that the fact has something to do with why they were all denied release. “

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World No 1 Scottie Scheffler says he fully understands why the PGA Tour has refused to allow players to take part in the tournament at next month’s Saudi Golf Series in Hertfordshire

Also talking to Sports skyColtart added that it does not appear that the story is close to being resolved following Tuesday’s events.

“First, the PGA Tour came out and said there was no release, and there would be an undetermined penalty,” he said.

“And it’s a really interesting language choice, because there’s nothing concrete, so the doubt there creates a bit of fear. Especially among players who are likely to lose a lot of things. if things don’t go well.

“It may not matter so much to people we know who have mentioned it, like Lee Westwood, who is nearing the end of his career and has a huge amount of cash in the bank. He might accept it. that risk.

“For others, there are a lot of doubts.

“Then Norman said that if the fines were going to come out, they would support them, and I’m still scratching my head thinking, where does that leave us?

“At what point does a substantial fine become so excessive that another action must then be taken?

“Looking at the grand scheme of things at the moment, everything has happened but I feel like we haven’t reached the end of this dark tunnel yet.

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Gregg Norman tells Jamie Weir that LIV Golf Investments is independent and will not respond to the Saudi government or Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud

“Norman said this is fixable. And it would be nice if people were sitting around the table thinking about how they could fix it.

“But our understanding is that there’s no such dialogue, and it’s hard to see where it could go other than a certain litigation path.

“This is going to last for a pretty long time.”

Indeed, Beem said that despite a lot of news on the subject in the past few days, there are still a lot of questions left unanswered.

“Until we really know more, until we know the players who will be playing but not getting the release and what the PGA is planning until they will allow these players to participate. LIV family…

“Until we know Greg Norman’s next move will be to try to help force a PGA Tour, he’s threatened to sue earlier this season, we’re sitting here and just a few kids. children are arguing.

“Unless we know the specifics, we could be sitting here for as many days as we’ve got.

“We have no closer solution.”

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan

One of Norman’s main arguments was to treat LIV as an “additive” to the golf season and not competitive, arguing that players could play LIV, PGA, DP World, and major events in the same season. .

While it’s a good idea, Coltart says he doesn’t see how it would work.

“It’s exciting, isn’t it? I love the idea that they could work together, that would certainly make sense to me, but past experience tells me it’s very, very difficult.

“When you look at the schedules of the top players, they’re lucky if they play more than 20 events per season. We have majors, WGC events.

“And when you’re playing with the massive amounts of money they’re talking about, there’s less incentive for those players to play elsewhere or support either tour.

“Take Jon Rahm for example, last year he played 21 times in the world, 9 times in Europe, and only three of those were regular events.

“And he’s actually been a pretty reasonable advocate for the European Tour. So history tells me it’s a good idea, and it’s an additive, it’s going to be very difficult to work because of the players who don’t want to play normally for a season.”

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