The civil war dividing golf between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf took another turn on Sunday as Spanish star Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano slammed former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley.
The lucrative LIV Golf series is funded by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and it has divided golf, leaving the PGA and DP World Tours fractured after the new series poached some of the sports biggest names. Several of the world’s most prominent players have decided to switch to LIV Golf, including the likes of Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson.
Fernandez-Castano plays on the DP World Tour, formerly known as the European Tour, which is the circuit that will have 17 LIV Golf players competing in the PGA Championship at Wentworth this week. Meanwhile, McGinley is a board member on the DP World Tour after finishing his career as a six-time Ryder Cup champion as a player, vice-captain and captain.
Ahead of the event at Wentworth, McGinley claimed 'not one (DP World Tour player) wants the LIV guys in our tournaments’ - and it appears his statement during the Sunday Times interview has touched a nerve. Fernandez-Castano took to Twitter to share his reaction, retweeting an image with McGinley’s quote and the caption: “Please don’t speak on behalf of all the membership @mcginleygolf.
“I have no problem whatsoever with the @LIVGolf players playing on the @DPWorldTour.”
Fernandez-Castano’s post was retweeted by Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood, two of the biggest names to have signed up to the controversial Saudi-backed series. McGinley is yet to respond to the Spaniard, but the Irishman made his feelings on the incident known.
“It breaks my heart because I have an emotional connection with every one of those (LIV) players,” McGinley told the Sunday Times. “I will see (Ian) Poulter and I’ll shake his hand at Wentworth, the same with Westwood and all of those guys that I shared team rooms with.
“That bond will never be broken. But you know, definitely, we’re on different sides now.
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“The key to the anger felt by the ordinary, non-LIV members of the DP World Tour is that these guys who’ve taken the big money from LIV think they’re entitled to come back and take the places of players who support our tour week-in, week-out. The LIV players don’t turn up for €2 or €3 million tournaments in the Czech Republic or Switzerland, but they come for the £6 million tournament at Wentworth.
“This has led to a lot of resentment. Keith [Pelley - DP World Tour CEO] has spoken to virtually every one of our players. Not one wants the LIV guys in our tournaments.”
Wentworth begins on Thursday in England, with Rory McIlroy among the field. The Northern Irishman is one of the biggest critics of LIV Golf in the sport, and last week he said: “I hate what it's (LIV) doing to the game of golf. I hate it. I really do.
“It's going to be hard for me to stomach going to Wentworth in a couple of weeks' time and seeing 18 of them there. That just doesn't sit right with me.”
Players who have joined the LIV Golf series - bankrolled by a Saudi Arabian regime renowned for their human rights abuses - were handed immediate and indefinite bans from the PGA Tour. The DP World Tour have implied they will fine the rebels and suspend them from future events but they haven’t issued a ban just yet.
