Golf Latest; Number 13 will make it difficult for the players to play on both tours- Luke Donald
Luke Donald is quite aggravated with the European Tour for raising the benchmark for retention of the membership card.
The player raised his voice against this notion and addressed a press conference in England in which he termed the new rule as baseless. In order to retain the membership card of the European tour, a player has
to appear in at least 13 tournaments, which is a difficult criterion for a golfer like Donald. The Englishman plays on the US based PGA tour as well as on the European tour; therefore, it becomes hard for him to manage the minimum number in each tour.
The minimum spot was at 11, but this year the European tour increased the number to 12 and few days back it was revised at 13. According to the PGA Tour, the minimum number will be revised again in the next year posing problems
for players like Donald, who divide their time between European and the US PGA Tour.
Donald’s compatriots; Paul Casey, Lee Westwood and Justin Rose have supported his notion as they too believe that if the same revision continues then the players will be bound to stick to one tour only.
World number nine said, “I understand that they want to encourage more players to play in Europe and one of the ways is to increase the numbers. Personally, I should be able to do that, no problem. But if they keep increasing the
numbers it's going to make some of the players who play mostly in the United States think about it.”
He further added, "Obviously, I love playing on both tours, but from a personal point of view it is very hard to spread yourself evenly between two tours - you tend not to get anywhere. At some point you have to draw the line and
figure out which tour you want to play the most, where you family life is and so on."
Luke Donald who recently won the Ryder Cup in Wales, finished third in the FedEx Cup and is seated on the 15th spot in the Race to Dubai has discussed his fears regarding the qualifying criteria.
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