Rory McIlroy described as a “slap in the face” to the professional James Hahn will skip Tuesday’s players’ meeting at Sawgrass after Hahn harshly criticized the PGA Tour’s new tournament format announced for 2024.
“Like, you’re throwing out all this criticism and you’re not even in the meeting?” the world number 3 told reporters after his press conference at TPC Sawgrass, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, where both McIlroy and Hahn will travel. at The Players Championship this week.
“If you want to know and be part of the process… The fact that I’m not in the room is a slap in the face to everyone there,” added the Northern Irishman.
In a phone interview with ‘Golfweek’ on March 4, the 41-year-old Hahn criticized the PGA Tour’s plan to move to a new Designated Event model in 2024, largely seen as a response to the controversial circuit of LIV. , supported by Saudi Arabia, which has drawn some great players to the PGA Tour.
“I hate them,” Hahn told Golfweek about the changes. “I’ll say exactly what 99.99 percent of the fans said about the players marching toward the LIV Tour. If only our players had said, ‘We’re doing it for the money,’ I’d have a lot more respect for them. But how are they covering it up? what they’re doing and trying to make it about sponsors and fans and saving rival events. I think that’s all bullshit.”
The designated event system came into play this year, with the goal of keeping players on the PGA Tour. The circuit raised the minimum purse for each of these events to $20 million.
Today, the PGA Tour has tweaked the tournaments even more. In the 2024 season, each designated event will have an entry of between 70 and 80 players, guaranteed to play all four rounds for a purse of $20 million or more.
“Right now, they’re covering their asses and saying all the things that the PGA Tour has basically trained them to say, taught them to say and try to make it not about the money when everybody knows that it’s 100 percent about more guaranteed money given to the best players in the world. We’ve been talking about money for two years and that’s not to say that’s not the number one reason they’re making these changes… so hypocritical .” Hahn added.
Hahn hasn’t won since the 2016 Wells Fargo Championship and has missed 13 cuts since last year’s Players Championship. He qualified for this year’s TPC because he finished 113th in the FedEx Cup standings in 2022.
Source: La Verdad
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