Four-time major winner Brooks Koepka has backflipped on earlier feedback to emerge as the most recent addition to Greg Norman’s Saudi-funded LIV Golf collection.
LIV Golf is but to announce Koepka as the most recent signing, however experiences counsel the previous world No.1 will join the likes of Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia on the insurgent tour.
Within the video above: Rory McIlroy offers Greg Norman a drive-by
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That’s regardless of Koepka, in March 2020, talking out in opposition to the concept of a rival league with simply 48-player fields.
“I have a hard time believing golf should be about just 48 players,” he mentioned on the time.
“Money isn’t going to change my life.”
The proposed rival league again then was completely different from LIV Golf, introduced because the ‘Premier Golf League,’ although nonetheless counting on Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Norman and LIV Golf took the concept of 48-man fields, with no cuts, with a crew element.
Additionally becoming a member of is world No.20 Abraham Ancer, the 2018 Australian Open champion, who has formally introduced his transfer.
Ancer mentioned his choice was not taken calmly and that becoming a member of LIV would enable him extra time to put money into, and provides again, to the sport by serving to it develop in his residence nation Mexico.
“I never could have imagined being in this position today,” he mentioned on Twitter.
The most recent developments got here because the PGA Tour held a participant assembly at this week’s Vacationers Championship, throughout which Commissioner Jay Monahan spoke of the plans to reshape the tour season and its tournaments.
In accordance to two gamers within the assembly, the tour plans to return to a calendar season that will begin in January and the FedEx Cup playoffs could be eligible for just for the highest 70 gamers.
At the moment, the highest 125 make the postseason, with the highest 70 advancing to the second playoff occasion and the highest 30 to the Tour Championship. The new plan is for the highest 70 initially, then high 50 and high 30.
The northern autumn could be used for gamers past seventieth to safe playing cards for the next yr, though analysis confirmed most inside the highest 100 could be protected.
The tour was nonetheless taking a look at three occasions for restricted fields, together with eight tournaments through the common season that will supply spiked purses within the vary of $US20 million.
Koepka received back-to-back titles on the US Open (2017-18) and PGA Championship (2018-19), although his sport has been in decline since then due to a collection of accidents.
His final victory was the Phoenix Open in February 2021 and he has fallen to No. 19 on this planet. Within the majors this yr, he missed the minimize on the Masters and has completed out of the highest 50 within the PGA Championship and U.S. Open.
The subsequent occasion within the Greg Norman-run LIV Golf occasion begins on June 30 exterior Portland, Oregon.
– With AAP