DUBLIN, Ohio (AP) — The Memorial always will be known as the tournament Jack Nicklaus built and Tiger Woods once dominated.
These days, it's hard to escape the cloud of LIV Golf at Muirfield Village, even if the only evidence of LIV players such as Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm is their photos on the wall as past champions.
It was three years ago at the Memorial when an email began filling inboxes across the golf industry announcing the first batch of defectors who signed up to play in the inaugural LIV Golf Invitational.
Dustin Johnson was the headliner. Another PGA Tour member headed for the Saudi-funded league was Hudson Swafford. He lasted three years before he was relegated out of LIV and now has nowhere to play, at least not anywhere close to home. Brooks Koepka bolted three weeks later. Cameron Smith waited until the PGA Tour season was over.
“It's kind of weird. It feels like it almost didn't happen anymore. It's like we're in a different timeline right now," Viktor Hovland said Tuesday.
One year and two lawsuits later, PGA Tour board members Jimmy Dunne and Ed Herlihy showed up at the Memorial and played in the pro-am.
Unbeknownst to any player in the field, Dunne and Herlihy — along with PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan — had been meeting secretly with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia to strike a deal. The framework agreement had been signed the day before.
The news dropped and shocked a week later on June 6, 2023. The agreement was never finalized. Negotiations are said to be ongoing, but nobody is talking about what might happen.
"We're still kind of in the same position, kind of in a stalemate,” Hovland said. “So it's a little weird, but certainly miss some of the guys.”
There is nothing quite as obvious about LIV this year at Muirfield Village. But then, Rory McIlroy chose to skip out on Nicklaus' tournament for the first time in eight years, another reminder of the disruption the Saudi-funded league has brought to golf.
The Memorial is now in its third year as a $20 million tournament, a spike in prize money to respond to the threat of LIV Golf. The objective of the PGA Tour — a plan hatched by the players at a Delaware meeting in August 2022 — was to create a series of big-money events that would bring together all the top players.
At first, they were required to play them all. That's no longer the case, which explains why McIlroy decided to skip the Memorial. This is the third signature event he has missed this year.
That's his prerogative, of course. McIlroy is not the only player to sit out a tournament that has the best field and the highest purse. Scottie Scheffler didn't go to Philadelphia because he wanted to make room for his two hometown tournaments in the Dallas area.
McIlroy is playing the RBC Canadian Open next week.
He once was the strongest voice against LIV Golf, first stating his opposition to the concept two years before LIV even launched, and then standing squarely in the PGA Tour's corner when the breakaway league set sail in 2022.
McIlroy also has been known to switch positions, striking conciliatory tones in an effort to help golf patch itself back together.
“I think everyone’s just got to get over it,” McIlroy said in February on how to repair this mess. “We all have to say, ‘OK, this is the starting point and we move forward.’ ... How we all come back together and move forward, that's the best thing for everyone.”
The question is who is most responsible for that?
This is where Scheffler has stepped in to offer perspective to those who think the fix is simple.
McIlroy has a big voice. Scheffler has been the consistent voice. Twice in the last two years, Scheffler has left little room for interpretation on how he feels about the divide in golf and where the responsibility lies.
It was last year at The Players Championship when Scheffler was asked if fans were disillusioned by the splintering of stars between the PGA and LIV.
“If guys want to go take the money and leave, then that’s their decision,” he said. “If the fans are upset, then look at the guys that left. We had a tour, we were all together, and the people that left are no longer here. At the end of the day, that’s where the splintering comes from.”
The subject came up again to golf’s No. 1 player last week at Colonial. This time Scheffler was asked if he would have won 11 times in the last 15 months if he had faced LIV players more than four times a year (five including the Olympics). That was followed by whether he knew anything about progress in getting the two tours together.
“If you want to figure out what’s going to happen in the game of golf, go to the other tour and ask those guys,” Scheffler said. “I’m still here playing the PGA Tour. We had a tour where we all played together, and the guys that left, it’s their responsibility I think to bring the tours back together. Go see where they’re playing this week and ask them.”
The subtle humor was found in his few words.
LIV wasn't playing anywhere last week, or this week. It returns next week in Virginia after a long break, and then the best from two tours get together at the U.S. Open.
That's how it started three years ago during the week of Memorial. That's how it is now.
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On The Fringe analyzes the biggest topics in golf during the season. AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Doug Ferguson, The Associated Press
