Why Dunhill Links week is creating a bit of welcome love back in golf

Admittedly perhaps a bit of a one-off and being driven by one man in particular in Johann Rupert, take this week’s $5 million Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on Scottish soil, for example.

Fourteen LIV Golf players are in the field, which, most important of all, is great news for fans as they take on the likes of Rory McIlroy, Billy Horschel, Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry, Matt Fitzpatrick and, let’s not forget, home hero Bob MacIntyre.

In Thursday’s opening round, it will also see Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, playing in the same group as Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, at Carnoustie.

They already know each other, of course, through the ongoing talks about the game’s future at the top of the ladder, but, at the same, it’s a great PR exercise to get them out on in public on a golf course together for a few hours.

“I don't think they are going to decide the future of golf in five hours around Carnoustie,” quipped Fitzpatrick, the defending champion, as he spoke at St Andrews on Wednesday. “Carnoustie is pretty bloody hard. Not much time for talking.”

That may be the case, but hats off to South African businessman Rupert, the driving force behind the tournament, for no doubt being behind it, as well as McIlroy then playing in the same group as Monahan at Kingsbarns on Friday then Al-Rumayyan at St Andrews on Saturday.

Horschel, who is teaming up with fellow American Monahan, expressed strong views about LIV Golf players on a previous appearance in this country. “Leave us alone,” he said in a terrific rant about them during the 2022 Genesis Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club.

Clearly being extremely unhappy about the LIV players feeling they could double-dip, he added: “I believe they made their bed. They shouldn’t be coming back over here to play the DP World Tour of the PGA Tour.”

He won’t, however, be expressing that view to Al-Rumayyan or calling anyone “hypocrites” as they make their way up Hogan’s Alley or tackle any of the other holes at Carnoustie. “I have no issue with LIV. I have no issue with the Saudis,” said the recent BMW PGA Championship winner, also speaking at St Andrews on Wednesday.

“I think competition is a great forum to better a person, better a company, to improve, and I would always bet on the PGA Tour to win out. Whether I said this at the Scottish or not, I did believe at the time that there would be a coming together. I thought it would be five years, not 18 months.

“But, looking at the game of golf now, I could never imagine at that point sitting there and speaking how I spoke, that the divide that we've created in the game of golf would create such a disinterest in the fans. And that's really who has sort of been hurt by all this.

“As much as I play golf for a living, I'm a golf fan. I'm a golf fanatic. I watch golf all the time. I do believe some coming together and some semblance of healing to the game and showing what the game is going to be going forward is what we need for everyone involved, but especially for the fans.”

Around the time Horschel made his initial comments about LIV Golf, lots of bad blood was evident on both sides of the divide. Those aforementioned talks are aimed at rebuilding bridges, but, according to both Horschel and Fitzpatrick, certain relationships may never be the same again.

“Time allows things to dissipate,” observed Horschel. “We've seen that through history. I'm sure there's people that still hold grudges and everything. Personally, I still hold a few grudges, I'm not going to lie. But I understand that for things to get better and heal, you have to get past that and move beyond that.

“For me, personally, I've moved on beyond that. But I know some guys, some players probably still hold grudges based off what I've seen said in social media and other interviews, and in just certain things I've heard in the locker room. But I think we do need to move beyond that to really come together.”

Fitzpatrick, an honest Yorkshireman, admitted he is “passed the point of caring” about what is going on in the background and doesn’t feel he should “waste any time talking about it”. At the same time, though, it was interesting to hear what he had to say about whether or not bad blood no longer existed in the game.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “I think there's probably some players in the States, their feelings, I don't think they would be very happy. If I'm probably brutally honest, at the start, I probably was pretty against, and it was not of any interest to me to go and play LIV. But I've always said that I understood why people went. I've got no issues with that. No issues at all.

“My issue was always, at the start, anyway, is you've gone over there. Like I don't feel like it's fair for you to try and come back and play, as well. But I would say I've changed on that now.”

Over breakfast and dinner chats during Dunhill week, one of the topics of discussion might be whether or not players who had the opportunity to join LIV but turned it down should be compensated in some way if the likes of Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau are offered a pathway back to the PGA Tour.

Horschel, for one, doesn’t believe so and not just because PGA Tour players are getting equity in the circuit through a deal struck with Strategic Sports Group. “I play for competing and seeing how great I am against players like Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and all these guys,” he insisted. “The financial side obviously does play a part, but it’s just a bonus to me, and that's the way I've always looked at it.”