LIV Golf chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan will play in this week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on the DP World Tour under a false name, according to a report on Wednesday in the Scotsman.
Al-Rumayyan, the 53-year-old governor of Saudi Arabia’s lucrative Public Investment Fund (PIF), was invited by Johann Rupert, the South African billionaire and man behind the pro-am event held annually at Carnoustie, Kingsbarns and St. Andrews. Listed under the pseudonym Andrew Waterman, Al-Rumayyan will play alongside LIV Golf’s Peter Uihlein and in the same group as R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers. Fellow LIV players Laurie Canter, Talor Gooch and Louis Oosthuizen are also in the field as non-members playing on sponsor invites.
“Sport is supposed to unite people, not divide,” Rupert, the chairman of Dunhill’s parent company Richemont and also chairman of the event’s championship committee, told The Scotsman. “We need to get peace.”
Al-Rumayyan, also the chairman of Saudi Aramco as well as Premier League team Newcastle United, played in the Alfred Dunhill event last year, as well. If the framework agreement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF is accepted and pushed through, Al-Rumayyan will be the chairman of the board of the new for-profit company created by the agreement.
“It was suggested to me a while ago that I should extend an invitation to (Al-Rumayyan), but I only got confirmation last week to say he would be playing,” said Rupert.