The field for the Saudi International this week is now set. And as we suspected, it falls a little short of being the gamechanger we were promised.
20 of the world’s top 50 are playing, which is actually a decent enough turnout. Some of them, it’s known, are actually contracted to appear in the event. They signed up a large swathe of players on multi-year deals for appearance money when it was initially part of the European Tour.
I’m told that these contracts were the motivation for some players to force the tours into a compromise for releases for the event.
When the SI and the Saudis/LIV Investments/Asian Tour went rogue, so to speak, Jay Monahan and Keith Pelley attempted to stomp their foot down, threatening dire consequences to anyone who played this week in Jeddah.
But, as T2G predicted, the players will have their cake and eat it, as they always do. Releases were granted, subject to future “guarantees”.
The PGA Tour’s is the insistence that those going to Saudi undertake to play the clashing AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in future years. It’s really the equivalent of kicking the can down the road for a bit, and one can imagine those guarantees being quietly forgotten.
20 of the world’s top 50 is good, but…
Bryson DeChambeau has withdrawn from the Sony Open in Hawaii with wrist soreness.
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 10, 2022
Given the big tours were forming a phalanx against the “disruptors”, having 20 of the world’s top 50 is good. The field is filled out by some oddities (Jason Dufner? Jhonny Vegas?), a few European Tour names and a whole bunch of Asian Tour members.
The banner names announced in December and January include a lot players who have been loyal to the event (although we know their loyalty is primarily pecuniary).
Dustin Johnson, Xander Schauffele, Bryson DeChambeau (injury permitting), Cam Smith, Louis Oosthuizen, Tony Finau, Abraham Ancer and Tyrrell Hatton are the current top 20 players in the field at Royal Greens. But I thought it interesting to look back at previous events and see who is NOT going.
2021 was an official European Tour event, of course, so included a large number of the tour’s roster. There’s a handful who are going back (like Thomas Pieters, Laurie Canter, Adri Arnaus, Sam Horsfield, Victor Perez, Lucas Herbert) but it’s far from a hefty compliment.
Sure, it’s a better field than the competing DP World Tour event, the Ras al Khaimah Championship. But really, that’s not a realistic comparison.
Only the handful of European Tour stalwarts in Jeddah (maybe) would have played that anyway. It’s a fair non-Rolex-Series field in the Emirates this week, including all of the DP World Tour Scots.
The Saudi International also has a better field this week than the PGA Tour’s AT&T at Pebble. But again, not every PGA Tour player in Saudi would have played that event with the celebrity amateurs and six-hour rounds.
Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay, Daniel Berger (who is defending), Matt Fitzpatrick and Will Zalatoris are the best ranked players in Northern California.
Some taking the whole week off
24-year-old Viktor Hovland moves to a career high No.3 in the Official World Golf Ranking.#SlyncDDC | #RolexSeries pic.twitter.com/WXEGpHfXg6
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) January 31, 2022
Who is having the week off? The top three in the world, for a start -Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa and newly ascended Viktor Hovland. The new Dubai Desert Classic champion did play in Saudi in 2021, but not this year.
Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Hideki Matsuyama are also not playing anywhere. McIlroy and Rahm are the only two who have publicly expressed their distaste with playing in Saudi. But if the others are not showing this year, it hardly qualifies as a huge measure of support.
All in all, we’re some way short of a proper revolution. If anything, the Saudi International field looks even more top-heavy than it did a year ago.
We await the inevitable showpiece announcements planned for this week with bated breath. Perhaps the considerable force of the personality of Greg Norman is going to convince some to breakaway?
Still waiting for the substance
Seriously, I don’t see many, if any, of the 20 top 50 players they are hosting this week defecting to the Asian Tour.
Again, we find ourselves asking the revolutionaries, where’s the actual substance to all this? Their flagship event is apparently no better – marginally weaker, I’d say – than it was a year ago.
The best future I can still see for the “rebels” at the moment is a sort of Desert Champions Tour. Ageing “names” looking for some coin in their late 40s and early 50s.
In the meantime, the “revolution” will be televised. If you want, you can watch it this week on the Freesport channel available on Sky, Virgin, Freeview, BT and online via the Freesports player.
The Asian Tour coming to England?
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There is one “big” announcement set for today. My friend Alistair Tait believes that a press conference on Tuesday will unveil a Saudi-financed and sponsored Asian Tour event in England for this summer.
Aramco, the Saudis’ oil business, will sponsor an event at the Centurion club in Hertfordshire. Alistair says it’ll be up against the Scandinavian Mixed hosted by Henrik & Annika, which is one of the lowest-paying events on the DP World Tour.
They might get a decent turnout of DP Tour players if the hierarchy is okay with more releases. But it’s also the week prior to the US Open at the Country Club, Boston. You can’t imagine they’ll get any of the really top names.
I don’t personally have a problem with the Asian Tour muscling in on England. The DP World Tour, when known as the European Tour, played in Asia on a regular basis.
It’s perfectly okay. This is a free country, after all. Unlike others one could mention.
