Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, is arguably the highest-profile name competing at this week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
PGA Tour and PIF officials held talks last month to try to end the current divide within golf, which was caused by the emergence of the LIV Golf tour in 2022.
Commissioner Jay Monahan and Al-Rumayyan are in the field for this week’s DP World Tour event, which is spread across three of Scotland’s iconic courses.
Billy Horschel, fresh from his win at the BMW PGA Championship, will play alongside the Saudi chief on Thursday, and the American has shared his feelings about the grouping.
Billy Horschel ‘excited’ about first-round grouping at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship
Discussing the grouping, Horschel admitted he’s excited about Thursday’s first-round grouping at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
“It’s a great grouping. I’m excited about it. Obviously got Rory and Gerry in there as well. It’s a great grouping that we have. We’re excited to play,” the American said.
“And I think, listen, 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.
“So 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.”
Billy Horschel: PIF conversations unlikely to take place at Alfred Dunhill Links Championship
With so many prominent figures on Scotland’s east coast, many would assume further discussions between the PIF and PGA Tour leaders will occur.
Horschel, however, admitted that hard-hitting conversations are unlikely to take place on Carnoustie’s famous links.
“One, I don’t think they are going to have any conversation on the golf course about the deal,” Horschel said. “And two, 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 are a lot of things behind the scenes that the public just don’t understand; they can’t comment on them.”
Horschel added: “But I figured about a month ago when I heard Yassir may be playing in this, there’s a good chance that I may be playing — Jay and I would be paired up one day with them, and I figured knowing Johann, we would be playing with Johann one day.”
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