Who is to blame if LIV players miss the majors in 2023?
Recently, newly-minted LIV Tour professional Cameron Smith put forth the opinion that it would be unfair and a shame if players who had joined the breakaway tour were barred from involvement in golf’s four major events.
His statement has been backed by fellow LIV participant Bubba Watson among others. As things stand, there is a real chance that the majors in 2023 could take place without the involvement of players on the LIV Tour.
While that might be disappointing for the players and some of the watching public, is Smith right to say that it is unfair?
To judge whether that is the case, it is worth looking at how the new tour has arisen. In doing so, it is impossible to avoid the point that when the LIV series was in its embryonic stages, the PGA Tour made it clear that players involved in any breakaway tour would be barred from involvement in their events.
Players who have embarked on the new tour were made aware of this and have chosen involvement in the LIV series anyway. So will their absence from the golf betting ranks for 2023’s majors be anything more than an inconvenience for them and a frustration for golf bettors?
To play PGA majors, you need PGA points
The field for a major is decided on the basis of who has accumulated enough ranking points to be involved, plus some invited “wild card” players. Playing on the LIV Tour means you can’t accumulate ranking points, so you’re left relying on being offered a wild card. Does it make any sense for PGA officials to leave a wild card open for players who have chosen to play on a rival tour? If they were to do so, what is the incentive for players who are wavering on an offer from LIV to stay and play on a tour where they are inevitably going to be paid less?
Leave aside the moral arguments…
There has been no shortage of comment made about the history of some of the individuals funding the LIV Tour. Any observer of this situation will have their own views on the morality of involvement with the tour in that light. To some extent, that’s irrelevant. Sport in general, including golf, has made some accommodations that would struggle to stand up to intense moral scrutiny. If players are barred from majors on the basis of morality, all we are doing is drawing a line somewhere on a spectrum that means some ethics are disposable and some are not. So the moral argument may be the wrong one to make in this case - albeit that it is one people are still perfectly entitled to hold personally.
Gary Player may have said it best
There’s little debate that players who have chosen to join the LIV series are predominantly motivated by money. In some senses, it is hard to blame them, because the amounts on offer are literally life-changing.
However, when Gary Player spoke recently, he made the entirely reasonable point that those who have chosen to defect have done so in the full knowledge that it has an impact on the PGA Tour, and that there are consequences for those actions. They can play in ranking events that attract Irish bettors and worldwide viewership, or they can bank nine-figure checks and play in tournaments without cuts.
What they can’t do is ask to be given special dispensation to do both. It’s not unfair to tell them they have picked their side. And it feels a little like whining when they complain about the consequences of their own actions.
It’s possible to make a case that the majors in 2023 will be poorer if the likes of Smith and Watson are not around to play in them. But if we’re going to attribute fault in this case, there’s really no place to lay it but at the doors of the players who have chosen this fate.
