Defending champion opts to skip major championship for truly head-scratching reason
Ross Kinnaird
UPDATE: We originally reported Cam Davis had won LIV Dallas last year, making $1.6 million. This was incorrect. Davis won the Rocket Classic on the PGA Tour while LIV Dallas was the season-ending team championship in 2024. The correction has been made below, reflecting how much Tyrrell Hatton made for his win at LIV Nashville, the corresponding event to LIV Dallas 2025 on last year's schedule.
Richard Bland enjoyed a career year in 2024. The late-blooming 52-year-old captured the first two major titles of his career in the span of two months, winning the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship in May and the U.S. Senior Open in July. The latter victory—which Bland won in a playoff, joining golf legends like Bernhard Langer, Padraig Harrington and Jim Furyk as recent winners—was the highwater mark of the Englishman’s long, winding career. But now, with the 2025 U.S. Senior Open set to begin this week, Bland is MIA … for a truly head-scratching reason.
Here’s what he had to say about his decision on Tuesday.
Skipping the chance to defend a major title at age 52 in order to finish top-24 in the LIV season standings is a bold move, Cotton. So bold, that many golf fans began speculating that Bland is contractually obligated to play LIV Golf Dallas this weekend, instead of defending the biggest title of his career. Whether or not that’s true is a question for the agents and lawyers, but if we take Bland at his word, he’s simply committed to being the best Cleek he can be this season.
It could also have something to do with the fact the U.S. Senior Open winner’s purse will be $720,000 for the eighth year running, while Tyrrell Hatton took home $4 million for his victory at LIV Nashville, the corresponding event to this year's Dallas event, in 2024. That’s the logical view, but perhaps Bland—like Tom Brady before him—is taking a discount to help build a unstoppable LIV dynasty. As the old saying goes, there is no “I” in Cleeks.