'Golf is one of those things you're allowed bash' -…

'Golf is one of those things you're allowed bash' - Padraig Harrington fears LIV Tour fallout

Padraig Harrington claims that the LIV Golf controversy is another stick to beat the sport with.

The three-time major winner fears that golf's image is taking a bashing because of the decision of a small number of "rebels" to join the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour.

Brooks Koepka is reportedly the latest big name to sign up for the lucrative Tour that heads to Portland next week.

Harrington, who is competing in his first US Senior Open this week ahead of his return home to the Irish Open at Mount Juliet next week, said: "I'd worry what the fallout is for golf.

"It's amazing when you're sitting here, watching and listening to all this stuff.

"It's one of those things in life, golf, that you're allowed bash. It's golfers who seem to be getting the grief at the moment - all golfers, all of golf.

"It's the image, they make a joke (about it) - I've seen journalists involved in golf retweeting stuff and, like, it's anti-golf when it's a tiny few golfers who have gone there (to LIV).

"Like, how can you label everybody?".

Harrington has previously said that controversy over the new tour will eventually pass.

Last month the 50-year-old admitted that he was "delighted" he wasn't in a position to have to make a decision on joining LIV Golf as he had not been invited.

"Put it like this, it would be tough in five or six years' time if I'm sitting there feeling like I've left 50 million on the table."

Now speaking on Jarlath Regan's 'An Irishman Abroad' podcast, Harrington referenced the outrage over 'Golfgate' that gripped the country during the pandemic when it emerged the Oireachtas Golf Society held an event indoors in a Galway hotel.

"I don't want golf and golfers to get a bad rap, a bad image," Harrington told Regan.

"Like we know in Ireland, how about Golfgate? It was a hotel - it happened in a hotel!

"It had a vagueness to do with golf, but let's bash golf.

"Golf has been great for Ireland. The people who play golf...you do need to be rich to play golf - rich in time.

"That's all you need to play golf and yes, there is a bias over the years that the person who had time was thought to be the banker, the stockbroker, that type of person.

"But the reality is if you go to a golf club, it's taxi drivers, it's barmen, it's anybody on shift work.

"It's saved the life of so many people who work odd hours and have time in the day, to stop them going off the rails their attention is put to golf."

Harrington insisted that class bias does not exist in the sport, pointing to the fact that his father Paddy, along with Rory's dad Gerry and Shane Lowry's dad Brendan, worked hard for a living.

"You only have to look at the Irish Tour players, every one of us is at best middle class," he stressed.

"My dad was a policeman, Rory's dad is a barman, Shane's dad is an electrician.

"We're basically as ordinary as you get but that's what golf is, but it does have that image and it's easy to bash it - and this moment in time really isn't helping things.

"They're coming out against golf rather than, necessarily, let's call them the rebels."