Stricker Says Westwood, Poulter Would Fit on Champions Tour — Liv Golf News
Steve Stricker said liv golf news has reached a strange point: older LIV Golf names would fit the PGA Tour Champions, but the route back is complicated because they left the PGA Tour. At 59, Stricker is speaking as both the player-host in Wisconsin and one of the tour's most visible stars.
He put Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Pat Perez, Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson in the same bucket, saying they would be hits on the Champions Tour. “There’s two ways of looking at it, right? Sure, to have the guys that are 50 now, or close to it, like Lee Westwood, [Ian] Poulter, Pat Perez, some other guys [Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson], they would be hits here on the Champions Tour. This tour could use that,” Stricker said.
Stricker's Wisconsin role
Stricker is not speaking from a distance. He plays on the PGA Tour Champions, has won 18 times there, and has collected seven senior major titles. He also won 12 times on the PGA Tour and captained the U.S. Ryder Cup team to victory in 2021.
That gives weight to his view of which players would matter on the senior circuit. He is also the player-host of the PGA Tour Champions' American Family Insurance Championship in Wisconsin, which puts him in the middle of the tour he says could use that kind of name value.
LIV exits complicate returns
The issue is not only age or appeal. The PGA Tour Champions is owned and operated by the PGA Tour, and the PGA Tour's punishments and restrictions for LIV players extend to the senior circuit. Stricker said plainly of the players he named, “they did leave.”
That leaves the Champions Tour as the most obvious fit for older LIV players if the pathway ever opens, but it is not a clean one. LIV's future is in doubt, and on Tuesday, LIV CEO Scott O'Neil could not guarantee the rest of the season would happen. Much of the attention has centered on whether Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm would try to return to the DP World Tour or PGA Tour, while older LIV players would likely not have the game to play either circuit even if they were allowed to try.
PGA Tour Champions pressure
For Stricker, the point is practical as much as philosophical. The senior tour needs recognizable names, but the golfers he singled out left for LIV in 2022, and that decision still shadows any return discussion. If the senior circuit becomes the only realistic landing place for older LIV players, the rules that come from the PGA Tour's ownership will decide how far that idea can go.
