Players who joined LIV Golf will not be welcome at next month’s Seminole Pro-Member, a high-profile event played the Monday after the Honda Classic at venerable Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Florida.
Seminole president Jimmy Dunne told Golfweek that the club is doing “what we have always done. PGA Tour players get the first priority.” Dunne lost friends in the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, where his company was located, and has been outspoken in his opposition of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league.
Dunne has played the Pro-Member in the past with Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson, who both joined LIV Golf last year and were suspended by the PGA Tour. He’ll play with Max Homa this year.
“Candidly, I have a pretty good relationship with most people,” Dunne told Golfweek. “These guys had a choice to make, but they’ve made it. That’s it. I’m not going to say something nasty about guys who participated in the past.”
Dunne was added to the Tour’s policy board as an independent director this year, a job he described as “a war-time deal,” a reference to the ongoing divide between the circuit and LIV Golf.
He’s also found himself in the legal crosshairs of LIV Golf as an Augusta National member. Dunne, along with nearly two dozen other club members, including chairman Fred Ridley, have been subpoenaed in the discovery process by LIV Golf in the ongoing antitrust lawsuit that was filed last year in U.S. District Court.