The leaders of the Open are still distracted by the Liv Golf Invitational Tournament
Slumbers insists that there is no problem for professional golfers to have the right to choose the venue of the competition and get the prize money. But according to him, the two competitions organized by Liv Golf show that the system is completely attractive to money. "I don't think they bring long-term benefits to golf or even erode the noble values and the spirit of open competition that set the sport apart," the R&A chief executive said on July 13. No sooner had the words been said than Schlumberes received 24 questions, 16 of which were about the Invitational Series.
With this prelude, Schlumbers announced on July 9 that they would not host legendary golfer Greg Norman at this year's Open, when they played their 150th match at the Old Course of Scotland's St Andrews Club-which is believed to be the origin of golf. The award reached this important milestone when international professional golf "rose", because the Invitational Series was developed by Norman and most of the money came from Saudi public investment funds.
The Invitational Series is known for threatening the domination of top international golf by the PGA Tour and its ally DP World Tour (the new name for the European Tour). The system is also seen as a means to help Saudi Arabia fill its bad reputation for human rights-gender equality.
The R&A doesn't want to be "distracted" by the Invitational Series and should do everything in its power to stop Norman travelling to St Andrews this week. They fear his presence could distract the game from its professional activities and respect for its heritage.
Norman should have been awarded a VIP ticket for having twice won The Open in 20 PGA Tour championships and 14 European Tour titles, entering the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2001, 331 weeks accumulated at number one in the world, behind only Tiger Woods (683 weeks) in terms of time in office.
During the media contact before the tournament, Slumbers further explained the ban on Norman: "Greg did not attend when The Open came to St Andrews in 2010. In 2015 too. In fact, Greg was absent for many years. He wants to attend, for some reason. Therefore, we have to take such measures to prevent it. "
However, The Open 2022 still receives players from the Invitational Series, a total of 23 people. All are competitive Cup Claret Jug because of the special category in the main round or taking tickets from the qualifying tournaments. They are all disciplined by PGA Tour and DP World Tour after returning to the new arena, in which the first -class golf arena of the United States hung sticks indefinitely and the European side fined and immediately hung three prizes in July.
Regarding the possibility of R&A encountered a "nightmare" when the Liv Golf personnel won The Open 2022, the CEO Slumbers used the courtesy: "I think anyone who is crowned will be named in the history of the tournament. I will wait on the green hole 18 to congratulate. The Open always gathers the best players in the world and I want to see who will go home first. "
Yesterday, the R&A leader said he did not prohibit the Invitational Series members attending The Open in the future but will correct the criteria to choose the player, similar to CEO Mike Whan of the US Golf Association when presiding over the US Open last month. Fixing criteria implicitly understood that golfers from the oldest Invitational Series into Major in the world are likely to be narrower.
LIV Golf has applied for Invitational Series to be calculated on the world professional men's golf board (OWGR). This is an important procedure to help members improve the position, from which the opportunity to compete for Major, when the whole four prestigious four awards made a list through OWGR, and the Invitational Series has not been recognized. In this fact, LIV Golf is having a big obstacle when R&A's CEO Slumbers, the PGA Tour Jay Monahan special envoy and counterpart Keith Pelley in European Tour are both in the Owgr Board of Directors.
