Kevin Na rumored to be joining rival golf league

Five-time PGA Tour winner Kevin Na is one of four players linked to a Saudi-backed rival golf league circling over the sport in recent months.

Na, two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson and European Ryder Cup stars Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter are close to joining the rival league, according to information obtained by the British-based Telegraph.

Greg Norman, executive director for the LIV Golf Invitational Series, told the paper it will be revealing four “marquee players” for the new league in the coming days.

Na, the longtime Las Vegas resident, is playing this week at the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and did not speak about the report. Members of his team at ProSport Management in Scottsdale, Arizona, did not return requests for comment.

The rival league with its promise of enormous purses has cast a pall over the PGA Tour this season with its attempts to poach top players, including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau. PGA Tour officials are emphatic that anybody who plays in an LIV event will be banned from the PGA Tour.

In March, most of the top players disavowed any interest and pledged their loyalty to the PGA Tour. Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm were very vocal about their opposition to the new tour, with a parade of top stars following suit and saying the PGA Tour was where they wanted to be. McIlroy called the plan “dead in the water.”

Norman disagrees.

‘We’ve respected the Masters and let it go off, but now our journey is finally coming to fruition for the players, not for me,’ Norman told the Telegraph. ‘Their rightful place to have what they want. That’s why they are still very, very, very interested.

‘We have players signed, contrary to the white noise you’re hearing out there.”

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in March that the tour stands by its position, even if taken to court, and he is ready to move on.

“We have too much momentum and too much to accomplish to be consistently distracted by rumors of other golf leagues and their attempts to disrupt our players, our partners and most importantly our fans from enjoying the tour and the game we all love so much,” Monahan said at the Players Championship.

Westwood and Poulter, veterans near the end of their PGA careers, have long been rumored to be LIV targets. The addition of Watson and Na, still regular contenders and much younger players, is a new wrinkle.

Na, 38, is ranked 32nd in the world and has been as high as 19th. He has victories in three consecutive tour seasons and was a surprise omission from last year’s U.S. Ryder Cup team. At the 2020 Shriners event, Na said other than winning a major, making a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup team was his biggest bucket list item.

The LIV has announced an eight-tournament schedule starting in June in London with an eye-popping $250 million in prize money. Each will feature a no-cut, 54-hole, 48-player field with a minimum purse of $20 million. Four of the events will be played in the U.S. — July 1-3 in Portland, Oregon; July 29-31 in Bedminster, New Jersey; Sept. 2-4 in Boston; and Sept. 16-18 in Chicago.

Greg Robertson covers golf for the Review-Journal. He can be reached at grobertson@reviewjournal.com.