FORMER WORLD NUMBER one Luke Donald is not happy with the European Tour after their new rules resulted in his playing partner taking just one shot before withdrawing from the BMW Masters in Shanghai on Thursday.
Joost Luiten pulled out after his first shot due to a shoulder injury sustained during gym work earlier in the week.
The Dutch golfer decided not to withdraw beforehand due to new rules on the number of tournaments players need to have participated in to qualify for the DP World Championship in Dubai in November.
Donald took to Twitter to express his frustration:
“New Euro Tour rule this year states that you have to play at least 2 out 3 events before Race to Dubai (World Championship in Dubai) to be eligible…”
He went on:
“If that rule wasn’t in effect then Joost would have withdrawn prior to event and 1st reserve would have got to play this weeks event. Can’t blame Joost – new rule forced his hand.”
Luiten, who has not qualified for next week’s WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, was left with little choice if he still wanted the chance to compete at the final big money event in Dubai as only the top 60 players in Europe — who have also played two out of the three preceding events — will be eligible.
Luiten is currently 11th in the Race to Dubai standings and so is a certainty to play in Dubai, but only if he takes part in two of the three events events and his one shot on Thursday meant he could tick off the BMW Masters as one of them.
Had he withdrawn before the start it would not have counted.
The unlucky reserve this time was South Africa’s Justin Walters who just missed out on automatically qualifying for the 78-man field, but travelled to Shanghai in case someone withdrew from the $7 million event.
Luiten hit his tee shot “120 yards, straight down the middle” according to Donald, before shaking hands with his playing partners and heading back to the Netherlands.
As for the golfers actually taking part in the event, Rory McIlroy and Padraig Harrington both shot level par in their second round to remain on -1 and level par respectively. Tournament leader Luke Guthrie (-8) is still to play his second round.
Additional reporting from AFP.
