All the top PGA Tour and LIV players are at the Masters as golf’s civil war rages – Firstpost

In some ways, golf finds itself in an era not unlike professional football in the 1960s, when two rival leagues clashed but found a path to reconciliation that produced a much greater game than anyone could have imagined. Bryson DeChambeau, for his part, hopes the still-simmering split between the established PGA Tour and the new LIV Golf could lead to a Super Bowl-style extravaganza that brings everyone together.

“You can look at it like the NFL and you could have the NFC-AFC sort of working in their own areas and in the end they come together and have a huge event at the end of the year,” DeChambeau said , who plays on the LIV circuit. “That could be really cool.”

At least major championships like the Masters, which begins Thursday at Augusta National, bring a brief relief to this civil war of ties.

All the top players – from reigning Masters champion Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka representing Team LIV to world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy playing for the old guard – will not only be looking to claim a green jacket, but also get bragging rights. for their de facto team.

“Obviously, the more we are together, the better it is for everyone. There’s no doubt about it,” said Sergio Garcia, the 2017 Masters winner who fled to LIV. “But there is room for everyone. I don’t think this is a problem at all.

Even though LIV appears to have strengthened its position with the stunning signing of Rahm, who was on the PGA Tour when it won at Augusta a year ago, there are actually five fewer players from the new tour than the 18 who played in 2023.

That’s largely because LIV events — with their smaller fields and 54-hole format — don’t receive world ranking points, one of the main routes to the Masters.

Yet the Saudi-funded tour has demonstrated that its best players can compete with the best on the PGA Tour.

Koepka and Phil Mickelson were runners-up to Rahm a year ago at the Masters, and Koepka won his fifth career major title at the PGA Championship. Of the 27 major championships held since the start of 2017, 13 have been won by golfers who now call LIV home.

Koepka took issue with those who say the split is ruining the game.

“Look, the best players in the world have never come together week after week. I think it’s a little forgotten,” Koepka said Tuesday. “Those were the major tournaments (World Golf Championship tournaments)…those were pretty much the 10 events where everyone was going to be there, for sure. And then it was sort of prevalent everywhere else. I think it’s a bit like that now.

But hard feelings remain, especially since a purported merger deal announced ten months ago has yet to be finalized.

Just listen to Fred Couples, 1992 Masters champion and staunch critic of LIV.

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand it,” he said. “Now everything can be better. But let me tell you, if the LIV Tour is better for golf, I’m missing something.

Rahm acknowledged that when he accepted a $350 million offer to join LIV in December, he hoped it would prompt the two sides to reach some sort of reconciliation by the time the Masters rolled around.

Today, with a gap that seems more yawning than ever, he is one of the most striking faces on a tour that has been called everything from the future of the game – with his shotgun starts and his team element – even a refuge of sellouts who help the Saudis paint the image of a repressive regime.

“It’s a little detour on my path,” Rahm said. “But change can be better.”

The attire he wore a year ago when he left Augusta National to go to what he chose for his practice sessions leading up to this Masters showed how much things have changed.

Gone is the green jacket. He now wears a shirt emblazoned with the Legion XIII logo.

The team he now leads at LIV.