Billy Horschel “excited” to play with Monahan and Al-Rumayyan

When he invited PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan to partner him in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship back in May, little did Billy Horschel know the sequence of events he would set in motion.

But here we are.

Fresh from winning the BMW PGA Championship a fortnight ago, 37-year-old Horschel will peg it up alongside Monahan in Scotland this week.

And when they get under way on the tenth at Carnoustie Golf Links on Thursday morning, they’ll be joined by LIV golfer Dean Burmester and the man who effectively bankrolls the Greg Norman-fronted league: Yasir Al-Rumayyan.

The governor of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia is playing in the Dunhill Links for the second successive year. Unlike 12 months ago, however, when he went by the soubriquet ‘Andrew Waterman’, his participation has not been cloaked in secrecy.

He and Monahan have been thrust together by event host Johann Rupert in what many have construed to be an attempt by the South African billionaire to unify golf’s warring factions.

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‘Warring’ is perhaps overstating it. Monahan and Al-Rumayyan have, publicly at least, been committed to building bridges since the shock announcement of the framework agreement in June 2023.

There has, though, been little in the way of meaningful progress on that front ever since, with multiple deadlines missed, sponsors becoming concerned, and fans and players alike getting ever more fatigued.

If this week can help force a resolution, so be it. And Horschel will have a front row seat to it all.

“I don’t think they are going to have any conversation on the golf course about the deal,” he told reporters in St Andrews. “But I do believe that there’s been both goodwill on both sides to try to make a deal happen over the last 18 months, year, since the agreement.

“It may not move as quickly as people want. There’s a lot of complicated things to figure out and there’s a lot of things behind the scenes that the public just don’t understand; that they can’t comment on.

“But I figured about a month ago when I heard Yassir may be playing in this, there’s a good chance that Jay and I would be paired up one day with them.

“It’s a great grouping. I’m excited about it. Anything that we can show the game of golf, especially the fans, that things are trying to go in the right direction, we are all trying to make this work and figure out how the game of golf is going to work in a couple years, but really how we are going to set ourselves up for the next several decades, is a positive.

“Hopefully, the fans understand by this pairing, by these groupings, that things are moving in the right direction and you’ve just got to give us a little more time.”

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Horschel’s softened stance on LIV is 180 degrees removed from the pugnacious tone he struck ahead of the 2022 Scottish Open.

Back then, just weeks removed from LIV’s inaugural event, he described the players who jumped ship for the Saudi-funded enterprise as “hypocrites” and more.

And whilst he stands by many of his words, he has taken more of a conciliatory position.

“I could never have imagined at that point sitting there and speaking how I spoke, that the divide that we’ve created in the game of golf would create such a disinterest in the fans,” he said. “That’s who has been hurt by all this.

“As much as I play golf for a living, I’m a golf fan. I’m a golf fanatic. I watch golf all the time. I do believe some coming together and some semblance of healing to the game and showing what the game is going to be going forward is what we need for everyone involved, but especially for the fans.

“Without the fans, without the sponsors, we are playing golf just because we play golf. We’re not playing golf for money.”

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor