While LIV players look forward to their first event of the year at Mayakoba in just four weeks’ time, the ex-European Tour players have been told by Sir Nick Faldo that as far as this year’s Ryder Cup is concerned, “they’re done.”

In a week that has seen reports of reduced offers for new signings, the ‘unofficial’ tour has also witnessed increased momentum behind the TGL tour, with Collin Morikawa joining fellow major champions Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas in the technology-led midweek league in 2024.

Led by the fiercely anti-LIV Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, the two-time major champion may have been having a side-swipe at the Saudi-backed league when stating in his press release that:

“I think the design of TGL to provide sports fans the world’s best in a weekly, primetime golf competition, from start-to-end in only two hours, will appeal to a broader spectrum of casual golf fans and introduce our sport to younger fans.”

Barring injury, McIlroy, Morikawa, JT and Rahm are certain to be facing each other at the Marco Simone club later this year, but whilst Faldo may be uncertain about who will be in the team, he is very clear about who should be missing.

Players that have made a huge impression in recent Ryder Cups — Ian Poulter, Martin Kaymer, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia and Graeme McDowell — have all made the decision to join LIV over the past year, something Faldo says makes the result easy:

“They shouldn’t be there because they’ve gone off and you’ve got to move on,” Faldo said when interviewed on Sky Sports News.

The 11-time Ryder Cup player and retired broadcaster admitted that age is certainly against them, but with no official ranking or Ryder Cup points awarded to LIV results, it is also going to be virtually impossible for any of the previous stalwarts to re-appear in Italy.

That is, of course, all subject to the result of an upcoming hearing, challenging any ban by the PGA Tour and restrictions by the DP World Tour.

With LIV player Henrik Stenson — the original European team captain — sacked within three months of being appointed, Luke Donald knows that he needs to choose wisely when it comes to his six free picks, and Faldo suggests this is the time to bank of the rookies:

“They’re [European LIV players] all at the age where Europe needs to find a new breed of 25-year-olds that can play half a dozen or more Ryder Cups, and I think we’re going to have that.”

“They’re done,” he said confidently, before continuing: “It’s a rival tour. If you work for a company for 20 years and you then leave to go to a rival company, I can promise you your picture won’t still be on the wall. You’ve moved on. Fine, off you go.”

“They made that decision and I’m sure they knew it was going to cost them,” Faldo said. “They were playing the maths game. They were getting a huge chunk of money up front, and they knew it was going to lose them sponsors, but they thought ‘I still win’.”

Faldo also commented on the LIV tour in general, offering his thoughts on the organization fronted by Greg Norman, his great rival on the course throughout his career, and against whom he overcame a six-shot deficit to win the 1996 Masters.

“It’s [LIV] a closed shop: 48 guys given loads of money,” Faldo said. “What gripes me is it’s not growing the game of golf. That really gets me when they fly across the world to a country that’s been playing golf for 100 plus years and say, ‘we’re growing the game of golf’.”

Of his great rival, with whom he split eight major titles in a 10 year period from 1986, the 65-year-old said:

“He was a great golfer. He really was a charismatic, exciting golfer and he’s absolutely wrecked all of that.”

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