Current:Home > MarketsPGA Tour's Peter Malnati backtracks after calling Lexi Thompson's exemption 'gimmick'-DB Wealth Institute B2 Expert Reviews
PGA Tour's Peter Malnati backtracks after calling Lexi Thompson's exemption 'gimmick'
View Date:2024-12-23 19:14:40
In his first year as a member of the PGA Tour policy board Peter Malnati has proved a champion of the everyman, coming clean on the average player's reaction to the PGA Tour’s framework agreement with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.
Malnati stayed strong on comments that players lost trust in the Tour after the announcement of the arrangement and added that it would take some time to be restored.
On Tuesday, in advance of this week's Sanderson Farms Championship, Malnati was asked about the news that LPGA star Lexi Thompson was given an exemption into the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas. The event will be played Oct. 12-15 at TPC Summerlin, which last year played 7,255 yards with a par of 71. The field of 132 will compete for a purse of $8.4 million.
The 36-year-old Indiana native admitted he thought the exemption might have been a stretch.
"I just got a text this morning, so I don't know much about it," Malnati said. "Obviously I know that Lexi at times has been one of the top players on the LPGA Tour, and she's obviously very athletic. Distance won't be a problem. She'll hit it far enough.
Malnati started to step in hot water with his next statement.
"I don't think we're going to need to resort to gimmicks to drum up interest. I shouldn't have said that. I don't know that having Lexi play is a gimmick, but I don't think the tournaments are going to have to go to those kind of lengths to drum up interest and get storylines that they can sell because I think these events are actually going to have a lot of meaning," he said. "Like I said, change is hard for everyone at every level, so I assume if you're a host organization of a tournament, if you're the Century Club here in Jackson, if you're Wayne Sanderson Farms, you just don't know right now for sure what you have anymore because the fall is completely reimagined.
"I'm pretty sure that the fall is going to be a blockbuster hit. I think it's going to be very successful. But these tournaments, they don't know yet."
STAY UP-TO-DATE: Subscribe to our Sports newsletter for exclusive content
A full-time LPGA member in 2014, Thompson has racked up 15 professional wins including a major − the 2014 Kraft Nabisco Championship.
"Having Lexi play certainly will get a lot of headlines, and if that's the goal for Shriners and the host organization in Vegas there, that's great. Obviously, she's a professional athlete. She's accomplished a lot," Malnati said. "It's not like − I mean, who knows what'll happen. She may go play really well and it'll be huge. She may play absolutely terrible and finish 132nd.
"Either way, she's a professional golfer. She has a spot in the field. The tournament is − if it gets them the attention that they want and it works out positively for them, it's great, all for it."
Malnati is one of seven past champions in the field at The Country Club of Jackson and is making his ninth straight start in the event. He won the tournament in 2015 and added a second-place showing in 2020, making him the only player to have a victory and a runner-up showing since it moved to its current location in 2015.
veryGood! (77)
Related
- Brian Kelly asks question we're all wondering after Alabama whips LSU, but how to answer?
- Little League World Series: Updates, highlights from Saturday elimination games
- Stranded Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams' Families Weigh in on Their Status
- Velasquez pleads no contest to attempted murder in shooting of man charged with molesting relative
- Georgia remains part of College Football Playoff bracket projection despite loss
- Texas jurors are deciding if a student’s parents are liable in a deadly 2018 school shooting
- Sofia Isella opens for Taylor Swift, says she's 'everything you would hope she'd be'
- Detroit-area mall guards face trial in man’s death more than 10 years later
- South Carolina lab recaptures 5 more escaped monkeys but 13 are still loose
- Sydney Sweeney's Cheeky Thirst Trap Is Immaculate
Ranking
- South Carolina does not set a date for the next execution after requests for a holiday pause
- Wait, what does 'price gouging' mean? How Harris plans to control it in the grocery aisle
- Counting All the Members of the Duggars' Growing Family
- Save up to 50% on premier cookware this weekend at Sur La Table
- Smithfield agrees to pay $2 million to resolve child labor allegations at Minnesota meat plant
- Former Alabama police sergeant pleads guilty to excessive force charge
- Is 70 the best age to claim Social Security? Not in these 3 situations.
- NASCAR at Michigan 2024: Start time, TV, streaming, lineup for FireKeepers Casino 400
Recommendation
-
Justice Department says jail conditions in Georgia’s Fulton County violate detainee rights
-
Is 70 the best age to claim Social Security? Not in these 3 situations.
-
Haley Joel Osment Reveals Why He Took a Break From Hollywood In Rare Life Update
-
Sara Foster Says She’s Cutting People Out Amid Tommy Haas Breakup Rumors
-
TikToker Campbell “Pookie” Puckett Gives Birth, Welcomes First Baby With Jett Puckett
-
Investigators looking for long-missing Michigan woman find human remains on husband’s property
-
Matthew Perry's Final Conversation With Assistant Before Fatal Dose of Ketamine Is Revealed
-
Who plays Emily, Sylvie, Gabriel and Camille in 'Emily in Paris'? See full Season 4 cast