Charles Howell III should tune in to HotelPlanner Tour Grand Final to see players battling for seats at top table
We’re going to be LIV Golf-ed out again before too long as more and more players jump ship due to the breakaway circuit looking close to sinking and, staying consistent to the bitter end on this one, it will be good riddance when that day arrives.
A big question now, of course, is where are we going to see the bulk of the players back competing and, yes, it seems that is likely to be on the DP World Tour rather than the PGA Tour in the first instance.
It’s a real balancing act for Guy Kinnings, the DP World Tour CEO, and, despite all his experience in the game from his time at IMG managing Colin Montgomerie through to now pulling the strings at the Wentworth-based European Tour Group, he’ll know that it will be impossible to make everyone happy.
In every single case, any DP World Tour player who signed for LIV Golf but has now opted out should, at the very least, be requested to make a charity donation and, even better, if that benefited golf in some way. The Golf Foundation, for example, in the UK.
As a starting point, there surely has to be some recognition that they made a decision that earned them a fortune - Tom McKibbin, for instance, made $18.7 million in just two seasons as a LIV Golf player - and have now come crawling back.
“I have to say, some of the LIV players coming back to play the DP World Tour is actually cool as some really good players,” wrote Ewen Ferguson, a three-time winner, in a social media post on Friday, “but (it is) hilarious how some of them slammed the tour for so long, not one good thing to say about it, now it’s the best thing since sliced bread and feels like coming home.”
He’s bang on, of course, and also rightly acknowledged that LIV Golf players who still have a DP World Tour status can feel they have a right to be welcomed back without too many eyebrows being raised. Jon Rahm being one and Tyrrell Hatton another, with both those players not only having qualified for the first of two upcoming season-ending Play-Offs in the Middle East but also having established themselves as Ryder Cup stalwarts.
Louis Oosthuizen, the 2010 Open champion, is also someone who is likely to be afforded a warm reception at any DP World Tour event he’s teeing up in going forward after deciding to call it quits as his time as the Southern Guards captain on the breakaway circuit.
When lots of flak was flying about at the start of LIV Golf, I always remember Keith Pelley, the DP World Tour’s CEO at the time, talking about how Oosthuizen had made a point of contacting him to explain that he’d decided to take the Saudi Arabian money due to the fact he wasn’t sure how long he might still be playing due to an injury issue.
The South African’s concern about the longevity of his career may not have materialised, but at least he seemed to be honest about his decision while others lambasted either the PGA Tour or DP World Tour in trying to camouflage a call they were making and didn’t like the consequences that came with it.
Losing out on a Ryder Cup captaincy, for example, and please don’t start calling for the likes of Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter or Graeme McDowell to be considered for that role in a post-LIV era. They are currently not eligible to be either a captain or vice captain while the majority of European players competing on either the DP World Tour and PGA Tour at the moment have little or no connection with them.
That might sound harsh in the case of Westwood, in particular, given that he was one of the DP World Tour’s greatest supporters over the years, but let’s try and be realistic about how things are going to end up in a year or so.
One thing that simply can’t be allowed to happen - and Kinnings, a golf man to the core, will know this better than anyone - is for emerging talent to be the ones who suffer through LIV Golf players returning to the DP World Tour. On that note, it was certainly heartening to see Eddie Pepperell, in a first-class Chipping Forecast post over the weekend, saying he believes he’ll be in a better position in terms of starts next year despite missing out on the all-important top 100 in the Race to Dubai Ranking this season.
If American Charles Howell III, though, is indeed serious about wanting to play on this side of the Atlantic, I suggest he tunes in to Sky Sports Golf’s coverage of this week’s HotelPlanner Tour Grand Final in Mallorca and watches 45 players battle it out in the season finale for 15 DP World Tour cards next year.
In the last five years alone, the aforementioned Ferguson and McKibbin, Englishmen Marco Penge and Alex Fitzpatrick, Danish duo Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen and Niklas Norgaard, Norwegian Kristoffer Reitan, South African Casey Jarvis, Spaniard Angel Ayora, Frenchman Martin Couvra and Kiwi Daniel Hillier are among those who have graduated from this event and gone on to shine on the main tour.
I’d also suggest that Howell III keeps tabs on the DP World Tour Qualifying School, with the Second Stage taking place at four venues this week in Spain, where the six-round Final Stage then gets underway on Friday week. Some players have already had to clear a first hurdle, with seasons having been geared for this particular test.
This is probably an apt time to be reminded that Brooks Koepka, now a five-time major winner, cut his professional teeth on the HotelPlanner Tour before stepping up to the DP World Tour. Yes, he was a lot younger than someone like Howell III and didn’t have as much money in the bank. Golf, though, should always be about earning opportunities and here’s hoping that some very rich golfers will soon become aware of that again.
Get our golf newsletter by clicking here