Jack Nicklaus on LIV golfers: 'I don’t even consider those guys part of the game anymore'
Brooks Koepka is less than two weeks removed from winning his fifth major, the PGA Championship. He was runner-up at the Masters less than two months ago.
And, despite what the world rankings say, he is arguably the best golfer on the planet, today.
But none of that matters to Jack Nicklaus, who has little use for players such as Koepka and others like him who defected from the PGA Tour last year to play for LIV Golf, which makes them ineligible for events like this week's Memorial in Dublin, Ohio. The tournament is hosted by Nicklaus.
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Nicklaus was asked by Golfweek if he was disappointed not to have two of the last four majors winners — Koepka, and LIV's Cam Smith, last year's British Open champion — in the field.
“I don’t even consider those guys part of the game anymore," Nickaus said Tuesday. "I don’t mean that in a nasty way. This is a PGA Tour event and we have the best field we can possibly have for a PGA Tour event for those who are eligible to be here. The other guys made a choice of what they did and where they’ve gone and we don’t even talk about it.”
The Tour is surviving without the few who move the needle and jumped to LIV. Players like Koepka, Smith, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson.
And Nicklaus, the 18-time major champion from North Palm Beach, is not concerned.
"I think it's probably as good a field as we've ever had," he said. "We've got a great field. You're going to have a great field here no matter what it is, and we do.
“For all intents and purposes all the top players in the world are here."
The Memorial includes seven of the top 10 and 38 of the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
Nicklaus, who sent a note to Koepka congratulating him after the PGA Championship, is proud of his past and his role in the first big split in professional golf that led to the forming of the PGA Tour as we know it today. He also has said that movement in 1969 was unlike what we are seeing today with LIV golfers breaking away from the PGA Tour.
“There were certain players that it was probably the right thing for,” Nicklaus said of those who joined LIV. “It probably spurred the PGA Tour, I don’t think there’s any question about that, either, to move it to greater heights. But it wasn’t for me, it wasn’t for what my legacy was. Obviously, I pretty much started what the Tour is out here."
The Memorial is one of the Tour's new designated events with a $20 million purse. That change was a direct result of LIV Golf, which offers $25 million in prize money for each of its 14 events, $20 million for the individual competition and $5 million for the top three teams.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Jack Nicklaus does not "even consider" LIV golfers a part of the game
