So much for wounds healing in the world of golf.
After a year dominated by the LIV breakaway, I was starting to feel that things were beginning to calm down.
The tit for tat comments of last summer hadn’t gone away entirely but they were nothing like as frequent.
The recent Masters was far less LIV-themed than the 150th Open in St Andrews that I was working at.
But three all-time greats of European golf – and Ryder Cup golf, in particular – resigning from the tour that helped make them will dominate the media agenda in the game for a while, no doubt.
Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia have all officially resigned their memberships of the DP World Tour, essentially ending their Ryder Cup careers.
3 of the greatest Ryder Cup champions of all time forced to retire because the golf monopolists are mad.
— LIV Golf Nation (@LIVGolfNation) May 3, 2023
Fundamentally, it’s hard to argue against the legal judgment that the DP World Tour have the right to fine players who jump ship to LIV.
There was a big cake on offer and the likes of Garcia, Westwood and Poulter have scoffed it.
But it’s also fundamentally sad that the highest Ryder Cup points scorer, the golfer with the most appearances and the talisman of this generation are highly unlikely to be seen in the Europe v USA arena ever again.
Would they have played this year? Probably not.
But they would almost certainly all have been captains – more than likely one after the other.
So much Ryder Cup knowledge and stature has been taken away in one fell swoop.
Middle ground a long way away
We’ll have to wait and see if Europe or the US suffer most from the LIV absentees but the competition as a whole has undoubtedly been tainted.
Nothing about LIV excites or intrigues me.
I don’t know where to watch it and I’m not really interested in finding out.
And I think I’m like a lot of armchair golf viewers who wouldn’t place any real importance on who wins an event.
But I would have loved to see a bit of progress made towards some middle ground as far as the Ryder Cup is concerned.
By the time we reach that point, it will likely be too late for the big three Europeans who are now in the wilderness.
Luke Donald isn’t going to have to deal with any LIV-related cliques and divides in his locker room.
But for the Solheim Cup, Suzann Pettersen might have some team-building work to do.
Charley Hull and Georgia Hall dropping out of the English team for an event in America might not be the biggest story ever but the reaction of Bronte Law and Jodi Ewart Shadoff took it to another level.
Charley Hull and Georgia Hall were both late withdrawals from this week’s International Crown. Teammate Bronte Law found out through chatter on the range, and wasn’t best pleased… pic.twitter.com/2TN37ckUF4
— Jamie Weir (@jamiecweir) May 3, 2023
Bronte has been quoted, saying: “I think anyone with some level of decency would send their team-mates a message that they weren’t coming, not find out from other players on tour who have heard things from them saying things at the tournament last week.”
Ouch!
Without knowing the ins and outs of it, obviously, I can tell you from my time on the organising committee of the Perth Masters curling competition that late drop-outs is one of my pet hates.
And I do know how important team spirit is for Ryder and Solheim Cups.
With all four of the English players in the mix for later this year, the European captain might be about to find out that keeping a united group isn’t as easy as the likes of Catriona Matthew and Paul McGinley have made it look!
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