Wesley Bryan is at Puntacana Resort this week, only he is not competing in the PGA Tour’s annual opposite-field stop in the Dominican Republic.
Bryan revealed to Monday Q Info’s Ryan French that he’s been suspended by the PGA Tour for recently participating in a made-for-YouTube match featuring both influencers and LIV Golf members.
The match, dubbed “The Duels: Miami,” was filmed ahead of LIV’s Miami event at Trump Doral the week before the Masters, with six two-man teams, each combining a LIV captain with a golf influencer, competing in a scramble format over nine holes for a $250,000 first-place prize. The nearly-two-hour edited production was then posted to Grant Horvat’s YouTube channel on April 6; it currently has over 2 million views. (Spoiler alert: Bryan’s brother, George, and Sergio Garcia won.)
“No, I don’t have regrets,” Bryan told French. “That video is one of the most powerful videos in YouTube golf. We are going to continue to support Grant and grow the game through YouTube.”
Bryan has also competed in two Creator Classics, influencer events held on the Wednesday before last year’s Tour Championship at East Lake and last month’s Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. Also, the Bryan Bros were announced last December as part of the PGA Tour’s Creator Council, which was designed to have top golf influencers “meet regularly with media, marketing and communications team members at the PGA Tour to develop shared strategies for content development and fan engagement.”
According to French’s report, Bryan was placed on probation by the PGA Tour the day after teeing it up at Trump Doral and was officially suspended the day after the match was published to Horvat’s channel. Bryan added that he was unsure how long his suspension was for. Golf Digest’s Joel Beall reported that Bryan was warned by the PGA Tour prior to his participation.
The PGA Tour has not responded to a request for comment, though the organization typically doesn’t comment on suspensions.
However, PGA Tour members who’ve competed in LIV tournaments have generally been suspended for a calendar year from their last LIV event.
Horvat told Smylie Kaufman on Kaufman’s podcast earlier this week that he’d been offered a sponsor exemption to compete in the Barracuda Championship this July, but he was still deciding whether he’d play.
Bryan, meanwhile, decided to take his family to Puntacana anyway since he’d already paid to share a rental home with fellow PGA Tour player Ben Martin. Bryan was last year’s runner-up in the event, which will be played this week opposite the signature-event RBC Heritage on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
“For the last eight or nine years, the opportunities have been amazing,” said Bryan, who began this season with merely conditional status as a past champion. “I’m extremely grateful to the Tour for that. I don’t want this to be the end of my professional golf career.”
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