By DOUG FERGUSON, AP Golf Author
Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson are welcome to play the U.S. Open subsequent week underneath a USGA resolution introduced Tuesday that places the open nature of the championship over a participant’s resolution to play in a Saudi-funded rival league.
Mickelson and Johnson are amongst a dozen gamers within the LIV Golf Invitational this week who’re exempt for the U.S. Open on June 16-19 at The Nation Membership outdoors Boston. Each have mentioned they plan to play the third main of the yr.
Amongst different U.S. Open gamers who signed up for the brand new league are Sergio Garcia, Louis Oosthuizen and Kevin Na.
“Concerning gamers who might select to play in London this week, we merely requested ourselves this query — ought to a participant who had earned his method into the 2022 U.S. Open, through our revealed subject standards, be pulled out of the sphere on account of his resolution to play in one other occasion? And we finally determined that they need to not,” the USGA mentioned.
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That the U.S. Open selected to not deny entry was not stunning. The second-oldest championship in golf takes pleasure within the open nature of its 156-man subject. Not one of the different 4 majors has standards in place that forces roughly 50% of the sphere to undergo 36-hole qualifying.
“It is one of many issues that separates our Open from everyone else. And if you happen to do not consider that, watch what occurred yesterday,” Mike Whan, the CEO of the USGA, mentioned in a phone interview.
He was referring to 36-hole qualifiers for 49 spots that had been held in eight American cities and one in Canada. Three others had been held beforehand in Texas, Japan and England.
Criticism of the brand new league headed by Greg Norman begins with the first supply of funding, the sovereign wealth fund in Saudi Arabia, a rustic with an abysmal file on human rights, most notably the killing of Washington Publish columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
“I notice folks have robust factors of view and suppose maybe there ought to be some morality clause,” Whan mentioned. “As I mentioned to our staff final evening, with greater than 9,300 entrants for the U.S. Open, if we resolve what’s on their sleeve or their bag or what tour they’re enjoying, what we expect is OK and never OK, I am undecided that circle ever stops.
“We do not observe private beliefs and who funds them,” he mentioned. “It does not imply we do not care.”
The USGA mentioned in its assertion that who performs subsequent week at Brookline shouldn’t counsel the group helps another tour or the actions and feedback of a participant.
“Reasonably, it’s merely a response as to whether or not the USGA views enjoying in another occasion, with out the consent of their house tour, an offense that ought to disqualify them for the US Open.”
Johnson earned a 10-year exemption from his 2016 U.S. Open victory. Mickelson has a five-year exemption from profitable the PGA Championship final yr. Others, reminiscent of Na and Talor Gooch, had been among the many high 60 on this planet.
Johnson and Oosthuizen are amongst those that have resigned their PGA Tour memberships. Mickelson may face self-discipline from the tour as a result of it didn’t authorize releases to play the LIV Golf Invitational. Releases are required underneath PGA Tour laws.
If gamers are suspended by the PGA Tour, it doesn’t have an effect on their standing within the U.S. Open, which is run completely by the USGA. Whan mentioned that does not change the connection it has with the most important tour on this planet.
“We worth their place because the strongest and most influential tour on this planet,” he mentioned. “Look who will get within the U.S. Open. They (PGA Tour gamers) are the strongest illustration and ought to be. This is not concerning the PGA Tour. We’ve got no phantasm how robust they’re, and the sphere standards displays that.”
Whether or not standards modifications for the 2023 U.S. Open and past is to be decided. Whan mentioned the U.S. Open exempt standards is underneath fixed evaluation, and there’s no telling what the LIV Golf Invitational collection will appear like subsequent yr or down the highway.
“What this factor is now’s totally different than it was 4 months in the past and what will probably be eight months from now,” Whan mentioned. “It’s kind of of a transferring goal. It will be inconsistent of us to resolve now what subsequent yr’s standards appears like.”
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