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      A New Twist for the Tradition-Bound Masters: The LIV Golf Era

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      LIV, Saudi Arabia’s breakaway league, split men’s professional golf. Now, the drama is coming to one of the sport’s most hallowed stages.AUGUSTA, Ga. — The mystery started in earnest last spring and lasted until autumn’s twilight. But Phil Mickelson — among the most famous frontmen for LIV Golf, the league bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund — insists that he believed he would be allowed to play the 2023 Masters Tournament, which opens Thursday.Never mind any discomfort, or how on-course rivalries had transformed into long-distance furies tinged by politics, power, pride and money. No, Mickelson reasoned, tradition would prevail at Augusta National Golf Club, surely among sports’ safest wagers.“The history of this tournament, the history of the majors, is about bringing the best players together, and it really needs to rise above any type of golf ecosystem disruption,” Mickelson, a three-time Masters winner, said in an interview last month.“I wasn’t really worried,” said Mickelson, who spent the 2022 Masters in a self-imposed sporting exile after he effectively downplayed Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses. But, he allowed, “there was talk” of exclusion from one of golf’s most revered events.Augusta National extinguished the talk on Dec. 20: If a golfer qualified for the Masters through one of its familiar pathways, like being a past champion, his 2023 invitation would be in the mail.The club’s choice will infuse its grounds through at least Sunday, when the tournament is scheduled to conclude, weather permitting. All of the customary narratives that surround a major tournament are bubbling: Will Scottie Scheffler become the first repeat winner in more than two decades? Might Rory McIlroy finally complete the career Grand Slam? Can Jon Rahm regain his dominant winter form? And, as ever, what will Tiger Woods do?But an undercurrent of ambition, curiosity and gentility-cloaked discord is present, too.Dustin Johnson, Mickelson and Harold Varner III, all LIV golf athletes, on the 18th green during a practice round on Tuesday.Doug Mills/The New York TimesFor LIV, the competition will be a breakthrough if one of its players dons the winner’s green jacket. For the PGA Tour, the Masters is an opportunity to showcase that its 72-hole approach to an ancient game is still king. And for Augusta National, the tournament is an opportunity to depict itself as skeptically above golf’s chaotic fray.“At the Champions Dinner, I would not have known that anything was going on in the world of professional golf other than the norm,” Fred S. Ridley, Augusta National’s chairman, said Wednesday, the day after the traditional gathering of past Masters winners.He added: “So I think, and I’m hopeful, that this week might get people thinking in a little bit different direction and things will change.”It was virtually certain that this week would not descend into open brawling, and it has not. Some players have complained about a news media hyperfocus on any potential tensions — and acknowledged that they, too, had wondered about the vibe and contemplated the stakes for their tours.Cameron Smith, at No. 6 the highest-ranked LIV player, said PGA Tour players had greeted him with hugs and handshakes. Asked what, exactly, he had anticipated, he replied: “I wasn’t really sure, to be honest.”He seemed more certain that LIV could use a strong showing on the leaderboards around Augusta National’s hallowed stage.“I think it’s just important for LIV guys to be up there because I think we need to be up there,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of chatter about these guys don’t play real golf; these guys don’t play real golf courses. For sure, I’ll be the first one to say the fields aren’t as strong. I’m the first one to say that, but we’ve still got a lot of guys up there that can play some really serious golf.”Cameron Smith, LIV’s highest-ranked player, said PGA Tour golfers had greeted him with hugs and handshakes.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMcIlroy, seemingly approaching sainthood in the eyes of PGA Tour executives for his steadfast defense of their circuit, said the Masters was “way bigger” than golf’s big spat and that he relished the opportunity to go up against 18 LIV players who are among the world’s finest golfers. Being around them again, he suggested, can build rapport, though he acknowledged restored proximity was not a guarantee of perpetual harmony.“It’s a very nuanced situation and there’s different dynamics,” McIlroy said. Referring to Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, the LIV stars and major winners, he added: “You know, it’s OK to get on with Brooks and D.J. and maybe not get on with some other guys that went to LIV, right?”For its part, Augusta National, whose private membership roster is believed to include at least two former secretaries of state, has sought to tamp down theatrics.Groupings for Thursday and Friday are about the most anodyne possible, at least in the PGA Tour vs. LIV context. Woods and Bryson DeChambeau, who recently suggested that Woods had all but excommunicated him, will not have a reunion at the first tee. Fred Couples, a PGA Tour loyalist who called LIV’s Sergio Garcia a “clown” and Mickelson a “nutbag,” is scheduled to play alongside Russell Henley and Alex Noren. McIlroy is grouped with Sam Burns and Tom Kim.And Ridley said that Augusta National had not invited Greg Norman, the LIV commissioner, to the club, where the leaders of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour have held court in recent days.“The primary issue and the driver there is that I want the focus this week to be on the Masters competition,” Ridley said. He said he believed Norman had attended the tournament twice in the last decade, once as a radio commentator.Ridley also sidestepped a query about whether Augusta National had become complicit in “sportswashing” Saudi Arabia’s image.“I certainly have a general understanding of the term,” Ridley said. “I think, you know, it’s for others to decide exactly what that means. These were personal decisions of these players, which I, you know, at a high level, don’t necessarily agree with.”“I want the focus this week to be on the Masters competition,” Fred S. Ridley, Augusta National’s chairman, said.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWith tournament play scheduled to begin Thursday morning, the week’s emphasis is rapidly shifting toward the competition itself. The event’s American television broadcasters appear unlikely to dwell on off-course subjects unless they must.“We’re not going to put our heads in the sand,” said Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports, which will broadcast the third and fourth rounds on Saturday and Sunday. “Having said that, unless it really affects the story that’s taking place on the golf course, we’re not going to go out of our way to cover it, and I’m not sure there’s anything that we could add to the story.”ESPN, which will air the tournament’s first two rounds, has suggested it is even less interested in golf’s geopolitical soap opera. Curtis Strange, the two-time U.S. Open champion who is now a commentator, said he didn’t “see us mentioning the Roman numerals at all.”“We have to give respect to the Masters Tournament,” he said. “The only way I could ever see anything coming up — and not even mentioning LIV — but some of these players haven’t played a lot of competitive golf. So how sharp can they be?”LIV golfers have said that they will be prepared for the rigors of the Masters, even though they have been playing 54-hole events, instead of 72, at courses that some doubt will have them ready for Augusta’s challenges.That dynamic will make this year’s tournament more of a proving ground than usual. But there is always next year: When Augusta National released its Masters entry criteria for 2024 on Wednesday, there were no changes that immediately threatened LIV players.Mickelson’s bet was still proving safe. More

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      LIV Players Excluded From World Golf Rankings For Now Or Forever?

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      The Official World Golf Ranking is a dividing line between LIV Golf and the sport’s establishment. Since the metric helps determine access to major tournaments, the argument is hardly academic.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Since he stepped into a tee box near London last June, Dustin Johnson has earned at least $36 million in prize money, the most of any golfer in the world.He has also seen his standing in the Official World Golf Ranking plunge, from No. 15 to No. 69.Less than three years after his Masters Tournament victory, Johnson is hardly playing poorly. But his collapse in the ranking — one he says he no longer bothers to monitor — is a calculable consequence of his choice to leave the PGA Tour for LIV Golf, the league bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund that debuted last year.LIV has gleefully rocked men’s golf and reveled in challenging some of the old order. The circuit, though, is finding that its independent streak can go only so far, and it is seeking at least some favor and special dispensations from the industry’s most hidebound gatekeepers.Those allowances have not come yet. LIV asked to be included in the ranking system about nine months ago, but executives are still weighing its application, and players like Johnson are slipping in the formula-based standings since they are appearing in few, if any, events that award ranking points. In golf, ranking is not merely a matter of ego; for many players, it affects the values of sponsorship deals and serves as a crucial gateway for entry to major tournaments such as the Masters, which will begin Thursday at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.“They need to do something to figure it out because, obviously, we have great players playing over here, and we’re not getting any points for events, and we should be,” said Johnson, who plays on the LIV circuit with the past major champions Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith, who, at No. 6, is the highest-ranked LIV player.“They just need to figure out a system that’s fair for everyone,” Johnson, who spent 135 weeks at the No. 1, said in an interview last month, when he figured his play these days warranted a position around No. 5.A potential affiliation between LIV and the O.W.G.R., which a handful of elite tours and governing bodies control, is being debated privately. But whenever a resolution comes, its ripple effects could shape LIV’s allure to players and the majesty of the Masters and the other major men’s tournaments: the British Open, the P.G.A. Championship and the U.S. Open.LIV and its supporters contend that if the league’s players are routinely excluded from major tournaments because of a spat over rankings, the reputations of golf’s pre-eminent tests will erode and, in turn, public interest in the competitions will fade. The Saudi league’s critics, though, are skeptical that LIV’s 54-hole, no-cut tournaments should be readily compared to the 72-hole events that are commonplace on established circuits like the PGA Tour.Players earn ranking points each time they compete in eligible events over a rolling two-year period. So as the months have progressed and LIV golfers have appeared in fewer sanctioned competitions, their banked points have declined, and they have slid down the list.Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 U.S. Open winner, arrived at last year’s Masters at No. 19. He has fallen to No. 155. Koepka, a four-time major tournament winner who prevailed at LIV’s event in Florida over the weekend, missed the Masters cut last spring but was No. 16 afterward. A former world No. 1, Koepka is now No. 118. Patrick Reed, the 2018 Masters champion, played Augusta last year ranked 31st; he now stands at No. 70.“I think a lot of people are against them having world ranking points,” Jon Rahm, the current third-ranked player and an occasionally fearsome critic of the formula, said late last year. “I’m not necessarily against it, but there should be adjustments,” maybe, he suggested, by prorating the available points for 54-hole events.“I think a lot of people are against them having world ranking points,” Jon Rahm said about LIV’s players.Mark Baker/Associated PressBut Rahm, a PGA Tour star, added of LIV: “They do have some incredible players. To say that Dustin wasn’t one of the best players this year would be a mistake.”Bickering over golf rankings is not quite as old as the sport itself, but it hardly started with LIV’s founding.The system that became the O.W.G.R. debuted in 1986 as the Sony Ranking. Ostensibly created to sort the planet’s best golfers — the PGA Tour money list had been regarded as the most sensible measure of a player’s fortunes — the ranking was initially seen in some quarters as a glossy way for a powerful agent to elevate the profiles of his firm’s clients. There was even a derisive nickname for the system: the “Phony Ranking.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.Views eventually softened, and now there is little mistaking the ranking’s widespread, if sometimes begrudging, acceptance, or its links to the golf establishment. Its governing board includes the leaders of the P.G.A. of America, the R&A, the U.S. Golf Association and some of the world’s most elite tours.The O.W.G.R. has said almost nothing publicly about LIV’s application. By the end of last year, though, the ranking’s technical committee had completed a review of LIV’s application, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential process. The milestone shifted the application to another committee, this one including representatives of the major tournaments, to render a verdict.The technical committee concluded that the new circuit easily cleared some of the standards for inclusion, such as sponsorship from a tour that may propose new members (in this case, the Asian Tour) and a commitment to abide by golf’s playing rules. But the panel, according to people involved in the process, flagged what some members regarded as serious shortcomings in LIV’s model, which some thought made it a “closed shop.”Officials fretted over the absence of an open qualifying school — tournaments that can allow players to join a circuit — before the start of LIV seasons, although league officials have argued that their “promotions” event suffices. And beyond the 54-hole nature of LIV tournaments, there were widespread worries about the league’s reliance on 48-player fields, which are far smaller than typical for professional circuits, and concerns that LIV golfers’ ownership stakes around the league could affect performances. Even now, skeptics note, LIV has not been around long enough to participate in the system.But LIV executives and players have focused on a particular lifeline: that the ranking’s most senior leaders have absolute discretion over admissions, including the authority to set aside any eligibility guideline.The major tournaments that use the rankings as an entry method have similar powers and are not obligated to employ the formula in the future, but no organizer has even hinted at plans to abandon the ranking. Unless Augusta National, for instance, alters its protocol, many of the 18 LIV players in the Masters field this year could be left out as soon as 2024.A handful face far less risk. In Augusta, many golfers and executives anticipate that past Masters winners will maintain their traditional lifetime privileges to play the tournament. But less renowned LIV players know that this turn at Augusta National could be their last — unless, for example, they finish in the top 12 this year.“It amps up the pressure,” said Harold Varner III, who made his Masters debut last year but said he had accepted the possibility of being left out of future major fields. (“My goal over all through all of this was, what was best for golf — and getting paid,” he said.)“It amps up the pressure,” Harold Varner III said of potentially being excluded from future major tournaments.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEven players who have proven capable of winning majors have confessed to fears that they could eventually be left out of some of golf’s most venerated events.“Augusta is one of the places where you want to play every year,” said Smith, who, if the rules remain unchanged, will qualify for the Masters through at least 2027 by virtue of his British Open win last July but currently has no guarantees beyond that. “Until these rankings get sorted, it’s definitely going to be in the back of my mind for sure.”He has, though, often resisted the urge to lash out in personal terms, even as his ambitions of reaching No. 1 have darkened for now.“I made my bed, and I’m happy to sleep in it,” Smith, who was reportedly promised at least $100 million in guaranteed money if he joined LIV, said recently on an Arizona patio. “But at the same time, I think there’s an argument for coming to a golf tournament and knowing who you have to beat.”If Smith, or one of his LIV colleagues, wins at Augusta in the coming days, his ranking will surely soar. The Masters, after all, is an eligible tournament. More

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      USGA and R&A Propose Changes to Golf Balls to Limit Driving Distance

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      Driving distance has been steadily increasing, and a proposal on Tuesday by the U.S. Golf Association and the R&A could affect elite players within three years.Elite golfers, who have increasingly used head-turning distances on their drives to conquer courses, should be forced to start using new balls within three years, the sport’s top regulators said Tuesday, inflaming a debate that has been gathering force in recent decades.The U.S. Golf Association and the R&A, which together write golf’s rule book, estimated that their technical proposal could trim top golfers’ tee shots by an average of about 15 yards. Although golf’s rules usually apply broadly, the governing bodies are pursuing the change in a way that makes it improbable that it will affect recreational golfers, whose talent and power are generally well outpaced by many collegiate and top amateur players.But the measure, which would generally ban balls that travel more than 317 yards when struck at 127 miles per hour, among other testing conditions, could have far-reaching consequences on the men’s professional game. Dozens of balls that are currently used could become illegal on circuits such as the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, as the European Tour is now marketed, if they ultimately embrace the proposed policy change.That outcome is not guaranteed — on Tuesday, the PGA Tour stopped well short of a formal endorsement of the proposal — but the forces behind the recommendation insisted that the golf industry needed to act.“I believe very strongly that doing nothing is not an option,” Martin Slumbers, the chief executive of the R&A, said in an interview. “We want the game to be more athletic. We want it to be more of an elite sport. I think it’s terrific that top players are stronger, better trained, more physically capable, so doing nothing is something that to me would be, if I was really honest, completely irresponsible for the future of the game.”The U.S.G.A.’s chief executive, Mike Whan, sounded a similar note in a statement: “Predictable, continued increases will become a significant issue for the next generation if not addressed soon.”In the 2003 season, PGA Tour players recorded an average driving distance of about 286 yards, with nine golfers typically hitting at least 300 yards off the tee. In the current season, drives are averaging 297.2 yards, and 83 players’ averages exceed 300 yards. The typical club head speed — how fast the club is traveling when it connects with the ball — for Rory McIlroy, the tour’s current driving distance leader at almost 327 yards, has been about 122.5 m.p.h, about 7 m.p.h. above this season’s tour average. Some of his counterparts, though, have logged speeds of at least 130 m.p.h.At the sport’s most recent major tournament, the British Open last July, every player who made the cut had an average driving distance of at least 299.8 yards on the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. When the Open, an R&A-administered tournament, had last been played at St. Andrews in 2015, only 29 of the 80 men who played on the weekend met that threshold.Jordan Spieth during a practice round at the Players Championship earlier this month. Dozens of golf balls currently in use could become illegal on the PGA Tour and other circuits.Cliff Hawkins/Getty ImagesThe yearslong escalation, spurred by advanced equipment and an intensifying focus among professional players on physical fitness, has unnerved the sport’s executives and course architects, who have found themselves redesigning holes while also sometimes fretting over the game’s potential environmental consequences.When the Masters Tournament is contested at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia next month, for instance, the par-5 13th hole will be 35 yards longer than it was last year. The hole, lined with azaleas and historically the course’s easiest, will now measure 545 yards; the full course will run 7,545 yards, up 110 yards from a decade ago.Faced with the distance scourge well beyond Augusta, golf’s rule makers considered a policy targeting club design. They concluded, though, that such a reworked standard would cause too many ripples, with multiple clubs potentially requiring changes if drivers had to conform to new guidelines.“If you don’t, you’ll end up with a 3-wood that could go further than a driver, and that was a very good point, and that could have affected three or four clubs in the bag,” Slumbers said. Instead, after years of study and debate, the U.S.G.A. and R&A settled on trying to urge changes to the balls that players hit.The rules currently permit balls that travel 317 yards, with a tolerance of an additional 3 yards, when they are struck at 120 m.p.h., among other testing conditions. The existing formula has been in place since 2004, and Whan has said it is not “representative of today’s game.”The proposal announced Tuesday is not final, and its authors will gather feedback about it into the summer. Although some members of the game’s old guard have openly complained about modern equipment and the governing bodies’ response to it — the nine-time major champion Gary Player fumed last year that “our leaders have allowed the ball to go too far” and predicted top players would drive balls 500 yards within 40 years — the executives are bracing for resistance that could prove pointed.“We have spoken to a lot of players, and as you can imagine, half of the world doesn’t want to do anything and half of the world thinks we need to do more,” Slumbers said.The PGA Tour, filled with figures who believe that fans are dazzled by gaudy statistics and remarkable displays of athleticism, did not immediately support the proposal. In a statement on Tuesday, the tour said it would “continue our own extensive independent analysis of the topic” and eventually submit feedback.The tour added that it was “committed to ensuring any future solutions identified benefit the game as a whole, without negatively impacting the tour, its fans or our fans’ enjoyment of our sport.”The debate may be more muted in some quarters than others, but the surges in distance have not been confined to the PGA Tour. Between 2003 and 2022, the R&A and the U.S.G.A. said Tuesday, there was a 4 percent increase in hitting distances across seven professional tours. Only two of the scrutinized circuits, the Japan Golf Tour and the L.P.G.A. Tour, posted year-over-year declines in driving distance in 2022. More

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      Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship Players to Watch

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      The defending champion, Thomas Pieters, is among those who could win the tournament.A new year on the DP World Tour brings new hope for players who have been around long enough to know how fickle and unforgiving the game can be from week to week — shot to shot — even for the best in the world.The Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, which begins on Thursday at Yas Links in the United Arab Emirates, should be no different. Some in the field will be in midseason form, while others will struggle, searching for answers before another season slips away.Here are five players to watch.Sepp StrakaStraka, 29, recorded his first PGA Tour victory at the Honda Classic last February and finished second at the Sanderson Farms Championship in October. Yet he also missed six cuts in a row in the middle of last season and missed three straight in November.His triumph at the Honda, in which he rallied from a five-stroke deficit with a four-under 66 in the final round, was the first on tour for an Austrian-born player. He had entered the week ranked No. 176 in the world.Straka, who lived in Austria before moving to the state of Georgia when he was 14, will have something to play for besides himself this year. He has a chance to be a member of Team Europe for the Ryder Cup matches in Rome.He opened the year by finishing tied for 21st at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.Henrik Stenson of Sweden last year at the P.G.A. Championship. He won his first LIV tournament, earning $4 million.Orlando Ramirez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHenrik StensonStenson, who had been appointed Europe’s Ryder Cup captain in March, was removed in July after he joined the LIV Tour. Luke Donald was named as his replacement.This will be Stenson’s first appearance on the DP World Tour since the dismissal. He and the others who bolted for LIV have been allowed to participate in DP World Tour events pending the resolution of a court case.Stenson, from Sweden, won his LIV debut at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey by two strokes over Dustin Johnson and Matthew Wolff. He earned $4 million for the victory in July.Tommy Fleetwood of England last year at the Zozo Championship in Japan.Atsushi Tomura/Getty ImagesTommy FleetwoodOne of Europe’s top players in recent years, Fleetwood has not won a tournament on the PGA Tour. Yet he fared well last year in the major championships, signaling he might notch that first victory before too long.Fleetwood, from England, missed the cut at the U.S. Open at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., but tied for 14th at the Masters in Augusta, Ga., tied for fifth at the P.G.A. Championship in Tulsa, Okla., and tied for fourth at the British Open in St. Andrews, Scotland. Fleetwood, who turns 32 on Thursday, was one of eight players to compile at least two top-5 finishes in the majors.Thomas Pieters of Belgium at last year’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, which he won. It was his sixth tournament victory since 2015.Ryan Lim/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThomas PietersPieters, 30, from Belgium, was the winner in Abu Dhabi last year — or, more precisely, the survivor.During Friday’s second round the winds kicked up to 40 miles per hour. Rory McIlroy summed up how many players were no doubt feeling: “I’ve never been so glad to get off a golf course.”Yet Pieters managed a two-over 74 that day to stay within striking distance of the lead. He finished a stroke ahead of Rafa Cabrera Bello and Shubhankar Sharma. Pieters, who has been ranked in the top 50 in the world, has also endured his share of difficulties.After winning three tournaments in Europe in 2015 and 2016, he went three years before he collected his fourth victory and then another two years before he picked up his fifth, which came in the 2021 Portugal Masters.No wonder the triumph on Yas Links in 2022, his sixth, was so gratifying.“I disappeared for a couple of years, I guess,” Pieters said after winning the tournament. “I’m so happy to be back.”Seamus Power of Ireland last year at Sea Island Resort’s Seaside Course in Georgia. He attended East Tennessee State University, where he won five tournaments.Cliff Hawkins/Getty ImagesSeamus PowerIn October, thanks to three straight rounds of 65, Power captured the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. A week later, he tied for third in the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba in Mexico. Then came a tie for fifth at the RSM Classic in Georgia. Of the 12 rounds in those three events, he broke 70 on 11 occasions. The other round was a one-under 70.Power, 35, from Ireland, attended East Tennessee State University where he won five tournaments including the Atlanta Sun Conference Championship twice.The next step for him is to be a real factor in the major championships. Power tied for ninth in last year’s P.G.A. Championship and tied for 12th at the U.S. Open. More

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      Tony Jacklin Reflects on His Career and on LIV Golf

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      He was on top of the world in 1970 after winning the British and U.S. Opens. And while he lived well, he said making money was never his top goal.The members of the DP World Tour, whose next event kicks off on Thursday at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship on Yas Links in the United Arab Emirates, owe a great deal to the European players who helped make the tour what it is today.That includes Tony Jacklin, the winner of the 1969 British Open, the 1970 United States Open and eight tournaments on the European Tour, now the DP World Tour.Jacklin, from England, also played a huge role in the Ryder Cup. A four-time captain from 1983 to 1989, he led Team Europe to two victories, including the first over the Americans since 1957.Jacklin, 78, reflected recently on his career, on the controversy over the Saudi-financed LIV Golf tour that guarantees entrants six-figure payouts and the game that has meant so much to him.The following conversation has been edited and condensed.When you won your two majors, what did that fame feel like?A Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

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      For 2022, LIV Golf Was the Story

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      The Saudi-backed tour, which has used big payments to attract players, has upended the gentlemen’s game.Golf is an individual sport, so any year-end reflection is going to be about the people who stood out.But this year many of the top names who defined the year in golf are past their prime or don’t play professionally.Pride of place goes to Greg Norman, the former world No. 1 and two-time major champion whose last PGA Tour win came 25 years ago at the 1997 NEC World Series of Golf. In that victory, Norman beat a young Phil Mickelson, who was just at the start of his career that would include six major championships and more than double the PGA Tour victories of Norman.Now the pair are linked in the creation of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf and roiling the established PGA and DP World Tours. LIV made headlines as much for paying golfers tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to join the league as it did for the source of the support, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.Add to that a rollout and public relations campaign that was bumpy — including one golfer who took $200 million to join LIV, while saying their move was to grow the game — and it made for a very unexpected year.“Golf was puttering along in its normal boring sport way, and then everything exploded,” said Alan Shipnuck, whose book “Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar” and subsequent reporting for The Fire Pit Collective, a golf news site, was at the center of the story. “This was the most fascinating and chaotic season in golf history. The gentlemen’s game has never seen this kind” of news conference sniping.The league brought fresh attention to the human rights records of Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince. It also held several events at golf courses owned by former President Donald J. Trump, who didn’t shy away from criticizing the PGA Tour.Phil Mickelson was paid a reported $200 million to join LIV Golf.Patrick Smith/Getty ImagesWhile a rival golf league had been talked about for years, just as LIV was set to start at the beginning of the year, Shipnuck published an interview with Mickelson on The Fire Pit Collective that criticized the Saudi government over its human rights record.“Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it?” Mickelson said. “Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.” He joined LIV in June.From that moment, the story on the men’s and women’s game has been Saudi money and LIV Golf.It overshadowed Rory McIlroy becoming only the second player to win both season-long events on the PGA and DP World Tours in the same year. Henrik Stenson, who now plays on LIV, was the first in 2013.It put the game’s administrators, Jay Monahan, commissioner of the PGA Tour; Keith Pelley, chief executive of the DP World Tour; and Peter Dawson, chairman of the Official World Golf Ranking, front and center.It spilled over to women’s golf, where talk focused on what might happen if the Saudis took a similar interest in top L.P.G.A. players. (The consensus has been Saudi money would decimate a tour that doesn’t have the financial reserves or lucrative television rights to fend off a rival league buying up players the way the PGA Tour has.)And it got young professional and amateur players thinking about their future in professional golf after a few unproven players — namely the 2019 and 2021 U.S. Amateur Champions Andy Ogletree and James Piot and a top-ranked college player Eugenio Chacarra — took LIV money and bypassed the traditional route of trying to make their way on the PGA or DP World Tours.“I spoke to some friends and coaches who said if LIV contacts you go there,” said Filippo Celli, who won the silver medal as the low amateur at this year’s British Open and is trying to play his way onto the DP World Tour.“You go there and even if you finish last in the tournament you can earn $150,000, which is a lot of money, especially at 22 years old,” he said. “When you’re young you’re thinking about the money. It’s normal. My dream is to play on the DP World Tour and then the PGA Tour.”But the threat of a rival league forced changes on both of the main men’s tours. Many of those changes were announced after an August meeting of PGA Tour players in Delaware before the BMW Championship.The increased money was the main issue, more prize money for the top players and also guaranteed minimum pay for golfers still making their way. That helped defer six-figure costs just to compete, and the money was a carrot to the elite players.Of course, plenty of good players have not been asked to go to LIV and have said they are not interested. Sam Ryder, who has played on the PGA Tour for six seasons, is one of them.“I’m not on the players council of the PGA Tour,” he said. “I’ve been trying to stay in my lane and play good golf. I’ve not been concerning myself too much with all that’s been going on. I just know that everything will sort itself out.”His playing status on the PGA Tour has earned him a new multiyear sponsor this year: Ryder, the transportation company. “Both Ryder and Sam Ryder remain committed to the PGA Tour,” said J. Steve Sensing, president of supply chain solutions for Ryder System.Some of the top players have not been as politic in their rhetoric. McIlroy, who reclaimed the world No. 1 spot this year, became the de facto player-defender of the PGA Tour. He and Tiger Woods were at the center of the meeting in Delaware, and he’s spoken forcefully in defense of the tour. Recently, McIlroy and Woods called for Norman to step down as LIV commissioner as a necessary first step in negotiations.Dustin Johnson was reportedly paid up to $150 million to join LIV Golf.John David Mercer/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBut there are knock-on effects of losing older but well-known players, like the future of PGA Tour Champions. It is where many of the game’s greats go to play when they turn 50. Each year the tour gets marquee players who are suddenly relevant again. This year, it was Padraig Harrington, a three-time major winner and Ryder Cup captain, who won four times on the Champions Tour.Yet some of the first players who went to LIV were close to Champions Tour eligibility, including Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson, and Ian Poulter, with players like Sergio Garcia and Paul Casey not too far behind them. It’s those big names that sell tickets.At a news conference in August for a Champions Tour event in Jacksonville, Fla., Jim Furyk, the 2003 U.S. Open champion and the tournament’s host, talked about the course and the fan experience. He even talked about Notah Begay III, a former player turned Golf Channel commentator who was returning to professional golf on his 50th birthday.What Furyk or anyone else at the event did not talk about was the previous year’s winner: Mickelson. That victory was his third win in four starts on the Champions Tour and augured well for his transition to the tour, and for the tour itself.But right now, the focus is on the main tours and seeing what LIV does next year. There has been little interest in actually watching LIV events. The league has no television contract and worldwide viewership numbers for streaming have declined with each event, particularly after the initial player announcements were made.Still, the PGA Tour, which had been slow to respond at first, seems to be taking no chances. It recently hired a lobbyist in Washington who is close to Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader who hopes to become speaker when Republicans take control of the chamber in January.“The tour has always been all powerful,” Shipnuck said. “Now there’s a competition.” More