The Masters Champions Dinner isn’t that far off and five-time champion Tiger Woods isn’t sure what to expect at the Augusta National clubhouse when Scottie Scheffler hosts the 2023 dinner gathering that will have LIV players present.
Last year Augusta National announced that it would not ban LIV defectors who were eligible to compete in the season’s first major — including past winners.
“I don’t know because I haven’t been around them,” Woods said Tuesday at the Genesis Invitational. “I don’t know what that reaction is going to be. I know that some of our friendships have certainly taken a different path, but we’ll see when all that transpires. That is still a couple months away.”
Former Masters champions Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson, Sergio Garcia, Patrick Reed, Charl Schwartzel and Defector-In-Chief Phil Mickelson will no doubt attend the dinner which lends possible friction between the PGA Tour guys and LIV defectors, especially given the current LIV antitrust lawsuit.
“The Champions Dinner is going to, obviously, be something that’s talked about,” Woods said. “But we as a whole need to honor Scottie (Scheffler). Scottie’s the winner, it’s his dinner. So making sure that Scottie gets honored correctly, but also realizing the nature of what has transpired and the people that have left, just where our situations are either legally or emotionally, there’s a lot there.”
Tiger Says Ceremonial Roles Not In His “DNA”:
Don’t look for Tiger to tee it up in The Masters once he thinks he cannot contend. Given Arnold Palmer’s 50 appearances and 52 by Gary Player, Tiger said he won’t do that.
“I have not come around to the idea of being — if I’m playing, I play to win,” he said Wednesday. “I know that players have played, and they are ambassadors of the game and try to grow the game. I can’t wrap my mind around that as a competitor.
“My hero, Arnold Palmer, hell, he played in 50 straight Masters. Fifty straight. I’m not even 50 years old yet,” Woods added. Nope, nope, I’m not playing that many, sorry,” Woods said emphatically.
“There will come a point in time when my body will not allow me to do that (compete at Augusta) anymore, and it’s probably sooner rather than later,” Woods said. “But wrapping my head around that transition and being the ambassador role and just trying to be out here with the guys—no, that’s not in my DNA.”
DP World Tour Waits For LIV Arbitration Ruling:
Last Friday (February 10) was the final day of a five-day arbitration panel hearing in London that will decide whether the DP World Tour (European Tour) had the right to suspend LIV golfers from competing on the Tour.
A three-man panel headed by retired High Court Judge, His Honor Judge Phillip Sycamore, CBE and two Kings Council (KC) members heard both sides to the argument within the walls of the Sport Resolution Centre in London.
A DP World Tour official stressed ahead that hearing that it is was not a court case. There was no public access across the five days, no public gallery nor media access or news of the hearing being relayed to the media.
It’s why there has been no mention of any kind from the hearing anywhere.
The result of the hearing may be weeks or months away.
Whatever the outcome and whether or not the DP World Tour will appeal if it loses, or, in contrast, will the LIV players might appeal is not known.
“The five-day hearing centered on the European Tour’s conflicting event regulations and the Tour’s ability to enforce it,” said the European Tour’s Communications Director, Scott Crockett ahead of the recent Hero Dubai Desert Classic. “It’s as straightforward as that and in that sense the hearing is very narrow and has a very specific parameter.
