Henrik Stenson is set to be announced as the latest capture for the Saudi rebel circuit on Wednesday with the Swede immediately being stripped of his Ryder Cup captaincy.
The 46-year-old’s dramatic U-turn will cause shockwaves throughout the sport and will be a huge coup for the LIV Golf Series. Stenson, the 2016 Open champion and former world No 2, is now down in 171st in the rankings without a title in almost three years and his best days are clearly in the past.
But his move to the Greg Norman enterprise shows that LIV has the ammunition to convince players to join even from seemingly the most unreachable of places. It is understood that his signing-on fee will be near the £40 million mark and that he is primed to appear in next week’s third £20m LIV event in New Jersey.
LIV named 45 of that 48-man field on Tuesday with no surprises but it is believed the other three will be new names – including Stenson – with the starting sheet completed by Thursday.
Former US President Donald Trump happens to be the owner of the venue in Bedminster and with Stenson’s controversial patronage, the game is preparing for one of the most contentious tournaments it has ever witnessed.
Telegraph Sport exclusively revealed on Monday that the DP World Tour – formerly European Tour – had arranged to talk with Stenson on Tuesday after all the rumours and whispers that produced a constant backdrop to last week’s 150th Open Championship at St Andrews.
Sources say that the feeling within Wentworth HQ was that Stenson would ask if it would be possible to fulfill his duties in Rome next year and at the same time play on the LIV Series. Although Stenson signed a contract in March that stipulated he could not play on the breakaway league, the recent court case that saw Ian Poulter win an injunction to play in the Scottish Open, despite being hit with a ban for his LIV involvement, might leave an avenue for a dual role.
The Tour was on Tuesday night remaining tight-lipped concerning the details of the call with Stenson, but trade insiders signify that Stenson will soon be unveiled in the LIV roster. Whether the news will be released by the Tour or LIV is unclear, but Pelley will surely want to get ahead of the story and line up a replacement as soon as possible.
Englishman Luke Donald pushed Stenson closest in the race to succeed Padraig Harrington – the Irishman who presided over a record 19-9 defeat in Wisconsin last September – while Scotland’s Paul Lawrie and another Swede in Robert Karlsson were also in the running. However, Thomas Bjorn, the victorious 2018 captain, could well emerge as the perfect figure to step up. Bjorn is a strong character with the unwavering loyalty that may well be regarded as a must in unprecedented circumstances.
Europe has already lost Poulter, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia and Graeme McDowell as realistic future captains after their jump to LIV and the primary objective now in Ryder Cup Europe will be to steady the ship. The US have lost Ryder Cup players of the quality of Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau, who have all been hit with indefinite bans by the PGA Tour and will therefore be ineligible for Rome. The biennial match has not been in such a perilous position since it changed from Great Britain and Ireland to Europe.
The reaction to Stenson’s reverse will inevitably be charged. When accepting the job, this popular personality said: “When I started out as a professional golfer, it was beyond my wildest dreams that, one day, I would follow in the footsteps of legends of the game such as Seve and be the European Ryder Cup captain. But today proves that, sometimes, dreams do come true.”
Even without official confirmation, the criticisms have already come in. Rob Lee, a Tour winner and also on the players committee, did not hold back. “Henrik had an agreement with the Tour that he would be their guy all the way through to the Ryder Cup next year but if he reneges on that then he has decided his own fate,” he told Sky.
‘It doesn’t feel at all right’
“As an Open champion and as the Ryder Cup captain he had a great legacy going on, especially with the mixed event he promoted with Annika Sorentsam. But he’s just flushing all that down the toilet by joining LIV. Fortunately, the Ryder Cup is bigger than Henrik Stenson.”
Even the Americans concur. Rich Beem, the 2001 US PGA champion, is dumbfounded. “I’ve known Henrik for years and years but this is disrespectful,” he said. “What an honour to be bestowed on him. It doesn’t get better than captaining your country or continent, does it? He’s doing it for the money. Let’s just say it. But couldn’t he have made enough money as the Ryder Cup captain for a few years and then go. It doesn’t feel at all right.”
Regardless of it being an unpaid job, it is estimated that captains can earn up to £4m in their tenure through endorsements. Obviously that is not enough for Stenson, a father of two, who lost tens of millions in the Allen Stanford financial scandal, as well as other financial dealings. He is represented by CM Management, the same agency that negotiated the moves of Poulter, Westwood and two other Englishmen in Sam Horsfield and Laurie Canter.
Plainly, that is how the line of communication with LIV has been kept open and the speculation now surrounds the possibility that Stenson might even have seen his signing-on fee increased since he became a captain from when he was offered a deal last year. What is certain is that this saga is about to take another unseemly turn.