Turns out Patrick Reed will still be playing plenty of golf this month.
Reed, who resigned his PGA Tour membership to join LIV Golf, has committed to play in the next two Asian Tour events.
The tournaments in Singapore (Aug. 11-14) and South Korea (Aug. 18-21) are part of the Asian Tour’s International Series, which earlier this year received a $300 million investment from LIV Golf. Because the LIV tour doesn’t offer world-ranking points – its application with the OWGR board is currently under review – the Asian Tour remains an avenue for those players to earn points that could help secure their world rankings. The top 50 at the end of the year earn exemptions into the 2023 majors.
The only LIV players currently in the Singapore field who are ranked inside the top 100 in world are Reed (No. 46), Yuki Inamori (No. 81), Scott Vincent (No. 88) and Sadom Kaewkanjana (No. 94). Because the tournament hasn’t attracted many of the top players in the world, it is unlikely to offer a significant amount of world-ranking points.
According to an Asian Tour release, both events will offer a $1.5 million purse, with a $270,000 first-place prize. Players earned more than that for finishing joint 13th last week in the LIV event at Trump Bedminster.
Reed’s inclusion in the Asian Tour fields is notable because of his previous comments about wanting to play less. Throughout his career he has prided himself on being an international player, recording fewer than 29 worldwide starts only once (the pandemic-affected 2020), and yet in joining LIV Golf Reed expressed a desire to play fewer events and spend more time with his family. Reed said that the year-round FedExCup schedule was “forcing you to have to play, and that’s not doing anything for you mentally and physically.”
But with LIV Golf, he said, “we actually have an offseason where not only can we get healthy, work on our bodies, but we’re basically allowing ourselves throughout the year to try to peak at the right times rather than feeling like you have to play every single week.
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“On top of it, just the quality of life for us as players now, having less events, being able to spend more time at home with the family, if you have kids, being able to spend time with your children, and not sitting there and having to play three, four weeks in a row, then have a week off, and during that week off you’re preparing, trying to get ready for the next week.”
Last week, LIV Golf wrapped up its third of eight scheduled events this year (Reed finished fifth), and its next tournament is Sept. 2-4 outside Boston. Next year LIV will offer 14 events, and it’s expected that many of the players will also add Asian Tour starts to their schedules.