Padraig Harrington offers solution to impasse between PGA Tour and LIV Golf

SOLUTION: Padraig Harrington during a media conference after his round at the Pro Am. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Padraig Harrington has weighed in on the current impasse between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV circuit by proposing some limited crossover participation on a week-by-week basis.

The rival tours, and Europe’s DP World Tour which is aligned with the PGA Tour, have been negotiating for a merger to bring the breakaway LIV back in line with the rest of professional men’s golf.

LIV, bankrolled by the Saudi Arabian government’s Public Investment Fund, was founded in 2021 and its offer of multi-million dollar deals to the world’s best golfers caused a split as some of the PGA Tour’s best-known stars, including major champions Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson jumped ship to join the series.

Ireland’s Rory McIlroy was one of breakaway’s biggest critics but in 2023 the PGA Tour agreed to merge with LIV and negotiations have been ongoing for more than a year. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan last month admitted a deal was still a way off and that there had been complicated discussions.

But speaking on the eve of the DP World Tour’s Amgen Irish Open at Royal County Down on Wednesday, three-time major champion Harrington put forward his solution to break the deadlock.

“I can never see… there's too many tournaments as there is. We've got the PGA Tour, Europe is fighting for its corner to get tournaments, like this week is a great week for the Amgen Irish Open. It's the perfect date.

“You start adding in more events and who are you fighting against for players at that stage? Most players say they want to play less so it's hard to add another 14 tournaments and have players have dual membership.

“So ideally for me I would suggest that every PGA Tour and European Tour event should have four invites for LIV players, and every LIV event should have four invites for an International team.

"That way we have enough crossover that we can get Jon Rahm to play the European Tour and we get Abraham Ancer to play the Mexican Open. If four PGA Tour guys come over, it's not like they are going to be welcomed with open arms; so that creates buzz at their events.

“Like if we had four LIV players this week, they would be focused on them, and people would be watching it. Some people would be wanting them to do well and some people would be wanting them to do badly.

"But that would create a bit of a buzz and vice versa, if four PGA Tour players or four international players turned up at a LIV event, they wouldn't want that team winning, they wouldn't want the outsiders, so that creates a bit of a buzz for them.

Padraig Harrington watches his drive from the 11th tee box during the Pro Am before the Amgen Irish Open Golf Championship. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

“That's the only solution I see in golfing terms. They can do all the business solutions, that's a completely different thing but you're not convincing … guys on the PGA TOUR … they are going to play an extra 10 events, 14 events around the world; that they have struggled with that idea of traveling to Asia or something like that that are, they are just not comfortable with the extra jet-lag and all that.

“But maybe having an invite … and nobody has to like each other, you know, it's good for sport when you have rivalries, and we've seen it at the majors this year.

“The majors have never been better because of those rivalries, so why couldn't we have that this week? Why couldn't we have a few guys… like I'm sure Tyrrell (Hatton) playing created a great buzz, two weeks ago at the British Masters.

"There will be a lot of home fans wanting him to do well and then there's plenty of people that didn't want him to do well. In the right context, that's good.

“That's my solution. I'm not sitting at the top table. That's why I'm sitting in the media centre telling you my solution.”