{"id":22049,"date":"2025-01-29T20:17:16","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T20:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/tom-mckibbin-northern-ireland-man-confirms-move-to-saudi-backed-liv-golf\/"},"modified":"2025-01-29T20:17:16","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T20:17:16","slug":"tom-mckibbin-northern-ireland-man-confirms-move-to-saudi-backed-liv-golf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/tom-mckibbin-northern-ireland-man-confirms-move-to-saudi-backed-liv-golf\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom McKibbin: Northern Ireland man confirms move to Saudi-backed LIV Golf"},"content":{"rendered":"


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McKibbin becomes the second player from Northern Ireland to make the switch to LIV Golf, with 2010 US Open winner Graeme McDowell already part of a circuit that has several other major winners.<\/p>\n

Those include current US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, plus Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith and Sergio Garcia.<\/p>\n

The Holywood golfer has qualified for this year’s Open Championship, which will be held at Royal Portrush.<\/p>\n

McKibbin turned professional in April 2021 and won his first DP World Tour event in June 2023 at the Porsche European Open in Germany. He also lost in a play-off at last year’s Italian Open.<\/p>\n

His decision could jeopardise his prospects of securing a Ryder Cup debut this season, even though he was part of the Great Britain & Ireland team at the recent Team Cup in Abu Dhabi which Europe skipper Luke Donald used to look at player options for the biennial match against USA.<\/p>\n

Speaking two weeks ago, former world number one McIlroy said he would find it “a little disappointing”<\/a> if McKibbin did move to LIV.<\/p>\n

“If I were in his position, which I think I have been before, and had his potential I wouldn’t make that decision,” McIlroy said.<\/p>\n

“But I’m not him. I’m not in his shoes. He’s a grown man at this point and can make his own decisions.”<\/p>\n

McIlroy added that he would continue to be a “fan” of the 22-year-old and “help him in whatever way I can”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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McKibbin becomes the second player from Northern Ireland to make the switch to LIV Golf, with 2010 US Open winner Graeme McDowell already part of a circuit that has several other major winners. Those include current US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, plus Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith and Sergio Garcia. The Holywood golfer has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[4150,2876,1064,8268,417,8266,1126,1175,8267,1673],"class_list":["post-22049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-n-ireland","tag-confirms","tag-golf","tag-ireland","tag-liv","tag-man","tag-mckibbin","tag-move","tag-northern","tag-saudibacked","tag-tom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22051,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22049\/revisions\/22051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}