Patrick Reed spotted wearing LIV Golf logo at Wentworth when told not to
LIV Golf players were told they were not needed in the Wednesday pro-am at the BMW PGA Championship and they weren't allowed to wear the LIV logo.
Correction: An earlier version of this story, published Wednesday 7 September, incorrectly reported that Patrick Reed defied "strict rules" by wearing the LIV Golf logo on his clothing ahead of the BMW PGA Championship. LIV Golf players competing in the tournament were encouraged by DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley not to wear any logos linked to the series but these were not "strict rules" as written in the previous headline. We would also like to point out Mr Reed sought to and did comply with the DP World Tour's request once the tournament started on Thursday by removing LIV logos from his clothing. The previous version of the article also suggested that "players such as Reed would not normally be playing on the DP World Tour." We have retracted this and recognise that as an Honorary DP World Tour member Mr Reed would have been playing in the BMW PGA Championship as part of his normal playing schedule, just as he had done in 2019 and 2020.
Patrick Reed has been spotted wearing the LIV Golf logo during a practice session ahead of the BMW PGA Championship.
Reed, who has played in three of the four LIV Golf Invitationals so far, was spotted with the LIV Golf logo on his shirt on the practice putting green at Wentworth (see GolfMagic's image above).
Ahead of the DP World Tour's flagship event at Virginia Water, an email from the tour's boss Keith Pelley encouraged players not to wear clothing that showed the LIV logo.
They were also told that they were not required to play in the Wednesday pro-am. As a result of these restrictions, two-time major champion Martin Kaymer withdrew from the event.
With Kaymer now dropping out there are 17 LIV Golf players in the field at Wentworth this week, including Honorary DP World Tour member Reed, who is making his third appearance in the DP World Tour's flagship tournament of the season following starts in 2019 and 2020.
A number of LIV Golf players who would not normally be playing on the DP World Tour have been criticised for taking the places of other DP World Tour players and chasing Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points due to their PGA Tour suspensions.
Defending BMW PGA champion Billy Horschel said the LIV players shouldn't be allowed to participate and he called them hypocrites for claiming they intended to play less golf by leaving the PGA Tour.
Horschel named Talor Gooch, Jason Kokrak and Abraham Ancer as examples of those who shouldn't be participating.
Jon Rahm was also frustrated at players in the field who "don't care" for the tour or the history of the event. The Spaniard came second behind Danny Willett in 2019.
The DP World Tour, formerly the European Tour, can't constitutionally ban players like the PGA Tour, but they did suspend players from three co-sanctioned events earlier this season.
There are ongoing legal proceedings to address this situation. Ian Poulter, one of the players who were suspended from these events, is also on the seven-man list of plaintiffs filing an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour.
