SUGAR GROVE, Unwell. — Bryson DeChambeau insisted he has no regrets about his choice to leap from the PGA Tour to the Saudi-funded LIV Golf sequence.
“I could not be happier to be over right here,” he stated. “I’ve no purchaser’s regret.”
The 2020 U.S. Open champion referred to as it the most important choice he has made moreover selecting his agent and added he has the “final respect” for the PGA Tour and the alternatives it offered him.
DeChambeau spoke Thursday at Wealthy Harvest Farms in suburban Chicago, finest identified for internet hosting the Solheim Cup in 2009. It is the place the fifth LIV Golf occasion and fourth on U.S. soil is being held this weekend.
He’s a part of a discipline of 48 that features Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia. Gamers on 12 groups of 4 will compete for factors and prize cash in a 54-hole stroke-play format with no minimize and shotgun begins. The purse is $25 million, with $4 million going to the person winner and $3 million to the profitable crew.
“What LIV Golf has offered is one thing new and distinctive, totally different, and with that to be stated, there’s going to be some disruption and other people aren’t going to love it, and I respect each single individual that does not assume it is good for the sport of golf,” DeChambeau stated. “I perceive it, however I hope they’re open-minded sufficient to go, you understand what, let me simply give it an opportunity, and if you happen to give it an opportunity, you may see one thing fairly cool.”
The breakaway sequence stays a supply of controversy.
DeChambeau and Mickelson together with a number of different gamers and LIV Golf are concerned in an antitrust lawsuit towards the PGA Tour, claiming it has used monopoly energy to attempt to squash competitors and has unfairly suspended gamers. Gamers who didn’t resign their PGA Tour memberships had been suspended for competing in LIV occasions, and most of these suspensions are via March 2024.
There’s additionally the difficulty of the place the funding is coming from, given Saudi Arabia’s human rights report. Critics say the gamers are basically taking blood cash.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, is considered one of them. The Majority Whip and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman tweeted Thursday he was not completely satisfied to have the occasion in his state.
“This weekend, a golf glove will try to cowl a blood-stained hand because the LIV golf match involves Chicago within the Saudi authorities’s continued, determined try to scrub up its picture,” Durbin wrote.
The gamers tried to keep away from politics and maintain the give attention to golf.
“All people is clearly entitled to their opinion,” Anirban Lahiri stated. “I’ve mine. However I do not assume it is related. My golf is related. What we do with our actions for the neighborhood listed below are related. These are all seen, and I feel that is what folks have to see. That is what folks have to give attention to as a result of there’s a number of good taking place, however nobody is speaking about it.”
Joaquin Niemann, enjoying his second LIV occasion, sees the sequence serving to “develop the sport in a great way doing this crew format.”
“It is getting so thrilling,” he added. “I have been loving it.”
DeChambeau hopes the PGA Tour and LIV Golf come collectively sometime and permit gamers to compete on each excursions. He insisted his objective is to not overtake the PGA Tour.
DeChambeau would love nothing greater than to compete within the Presidents Cup at Quail Hole in Charlotte, North Carolina, subsequent weekend. However as a result of he made the bounce, that will not occur.
“I personally assume that the crew occasions are solely hurting themselves by not permitting us to play, not permitting us to qualify via some capability, in some side,” he stated.
As a substitute, he’ll watch the Presidents Cup from afar.
“I am a golf fan, at first,” DeChambeau stated. “I will watch golf wherever it is performed with a few of the finest gamers on the earth, whoever it’s. I feel down the street that’ll change. I feel that this may change into one thing particular, much more particular than what it’s now, and transferring ahead sooner or later, I will nonetheless watch different tournaments that I’ve gained and carried out nicely at earlier than.”
