Ian Poulter has credited LIV Golf for giving him more ‘family time’ after the Englishman opted to miss Final Open Qualifying for the second successive season.
Several of Poulter’s LIV Golf peers entered qualifying for the final Major Championship of the season last week, including Sergio Garcia and Graeme McDowell.
While that duo didn’t play their way into the 152nd edition of golf’s original championship, Sam Horsfield and Abraham Ancer did and will make up the 156 man field at Royal Troon next week.
Poulter’s decision not to qualify means he has now not played a Major Championship since the 2022 Open Championship, and likely won’t be featuring in any time soon with his World Ranking plummeting to outside the top 600 following his move to LIV Golf in 2022.
“My world ranking is not high enough to get into the Open Championship,” the Englishman told talkSPORT.
“I had the ability to go and qualify and I didn’t. I was on holiday with the family in Switzerland instead. That is what LIV Golf has given me, a bit more family time. I still have got a busy schedule with LIV playing 14 tournaments.”
His Majesticks GC teammate Lee Westwood also turned down the chance to qualify, but the team’s third co-captain Henrik Stenson will return to Royal Troon as the last player to lift the Claret Jug at the venue back in 2016.
Alongside Ancer, Horsfield and Stenson, the LIV golfers in the field at Troon include Bryson DeChambeu, Tyrrell Hatton, Brooks Kopek, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Jon Rahm, Cameron Smith, Joaquin Niemann, Dustin Johnson, Louis Oosthuizen, Andy Ogletree and Dubai-based Adrian Meronk.
