When Sergio Garcia wrapped up his T-68 finish at the Open Championship at St. Andrews, he was just about ready to resign his membership from the DP World Tour, which would make him ineligible for the 2023 Ryder Cup in Italy.
A couple weeks later, Garcia has changed his mind on his DP World Tour membership future.
“But thanks to the things that Jon Rahm said, and I had a couple of good conversations with guys on the (DP World) Tour, I’m going to hold off on that. I want to at least see what’s happening when the Ryder Cup qualification starts. See what kind of rules and eligibilities they have in there,” Garcia said to ESPN. “If I agree with what they (are), I’ll definitely keep playing whatever I can on the tour and try to qualify for that Ryder Cup team. And if not, then we’ll move on. But it is definitely something that is in my mind.”
“I told (DP World Tour CEO) Keith Pelley, ‘I want to keep being a member of the DP World Tour. I want to play my minimum, still support the tour, still have my eligibilities to make Ryder Cup teams,'” Garcia explained. “He said, ‘That’s great, but we got to do what’s best for us. We’ll see what that is.'”
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The 42-year-old Spaniard was one of the first players to resign his PGA Tour membership to join the Greg Norman-led LIV Golf Invitational Series, which is backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. LIV Golf will hold its third event later this week at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster.
Saudi Arabia has been accused of wide-ranging human rights abuses, including politically motivated killings, torture, forced disappearances and inhumane treatment of prisoners. And members of the royal family and Saudi government were accused of involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist.
“Now it’s gotten a little bit sadder with fines and bans,” Garcia said of the rift between LIV, the PGA and DP World tours. “What they did to Henrik. It’s a little bit sad.”
Henrik Stenson was stripped of his Ryder Cup captaincy last week after he joined the upstart circuit. The 46-year-old Swede will make his LIV debut at Bedminster.
“In light of decisions made by Henrik in relation to his personal circumstances, it has become clear that he will not be able to fulfill certain contractual obligations to Ryder Cup Europe that he had committed to prior to his announcement as Captain on Tuesday, March 15, 2022, and it is therefore not possible for him to continue in the role of Captain,” the DP World Tour said in statement.
“The opportunity to play in LIV events moving forward is something that I want to experience,” said Stenson in a lengthy Twitter statement.
Garcia has represented Europe in the Ryder Cup 10 times and boasts a 25-13-7 record. He holds the record for points scored for Team Europe (28.5) and is just one appearance behind all-time leaders Lee Westwood and Nick Faldo (11).
