'I Will Create My Own Majors' - Saudi Golf Chief

The Saudi Golf Federation is remaining defiant despite speculation that has linked LIV Golf members with being denied entry to forthcoming Major championships. 

Majed Al Sorour, CEO of Saudi Golf Federation, Golf Saudi and Director of Newcastle United Football Club following a consortium-led purchase by the Kingdom's Public Investment Fund, has insisted "I will create my own Majors" if that is the case. 

"For now, the Majors are siding with the Tour, and I don’t know why," Sorour told the New Yorker. "If the Majors decide not to have our players play? I will celebrate. I will create my own Majors for my players. Honestly, I think all the Tours are being run by guys who don’t understand business.”

Sorour also revealed how damaging Phil Mickelson's comments to Alan Shipnuck were before the upstart venture had even launched. He recalled a telephone conversation with Yasir bin Othman Al-Rumayyan, Governor of the PIF, after the excerpt was released: "I said, '‘Everyone’s walking away. Do you want to do it, or not?' Get the biggest mediocres, get the ten that we have, get you and I, and let’s go play for twenty-five million dollars" 

That was then and this is now and LIV Golf has just wrapped its seventh event in Jeddah last week. However, there are still many uncertainties surrounding the controversial circuit. Its members remain suspended from competing on the PGA Tour, a decision that is to be contested in court in 2024, however it is not yet known whether they will be permitted entry into golf's most coveted championships.

The difficulty in the decision lies with four separate bodies, of which who will want to present a united front. The Masters is an invitation-style event governed by Augusta National officials whilst the R&A oversees the Open Championship. The USGA hold an identical role for the US Open with the PGA of America the entity in charge of the PGA Championship. 

According to a lawsuit originally filed by 11 former PGA Tour players back in August, Augusta National threatened to uninvite LIV members from next year's event if they left the PGA Tour. Reigning Open champion Cameron Smith said "it would be heartbreaking" if he was denied the opportunity to compete at the Masters, a venue where he has achieved four top-10 finishes in just six outings.

With competing in Majors seemingly hanging in the balance, LIV Golf remains embroiled in a battle with the Official World Golf Ranking board; an outcome that would be crucial for players to gain automatic qualification. 

LIV Golf submitted an application for recognition that was endorsed by the Asian Tour before it entered into a strategic alliance with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Tour in the hope it would "immediately qualify" for ranking points. That however, was denied by OWGR chiefs on the grounds of "insufficient notice", saying that "only after the review is complete will a decision be made on awarding points to the MENA Tour's new "Limited Field Tournaments" [the LIV Golf Invitational Series]."

Former US Open champion Graeme McDowell recently hit out at those in charge, insisting: "The longer this goes on, we have a huge amount of deterioration in the current world ranking points for the guys out here, and if that doesn't retrospectively kind of get taken care of, by the time that we do get ranking points, our strength of field is going to be relatively much less than it needs to be. So we just getting hurt the longer this game gets played, and it needs to be taken care of ASAP."