A little over a month ago, a man of high office hosted a dinner at his golf resort in Miami. It might not be the greatest surprise that the chap in question invited players from the LIV circuit to join him and, no less predictable, most accepted.
Because how often does a sitting President call you over for supper?
But here’s the thing about the sharer of this yarn – Richard Bland has always known what works for him. And at 52, he knows the value of a good sleep.
‘I’d had a pretty busy week,’ he tells Mail Sport. ‘I’d had a big dinner the night before and I didn’t want two late nights in a row. I’m sure I wasn’t missed.’
If he was, Donald Trump is yet to confirm it.
An amusing tale, that one, and more for how it was expressed. Deadpan. No frills. No trace of a political statement, either. But bland? His name does him a disservice.
Richard Bland, picturing teeing off at a recent LIV Golf event, is enjoying a late-career surge
Bland, 52, turned down a dinner invitation from US president Donald Trump at his Miami resort
Bland, who hails from Burton upon Trent, has enjoyed an unusual and fascinating career arc
When he tees up at the US PGA Championship on Thursday, this son of Burton upon Trent will be riding atop one of the most fascinating and unusual career arcs in golf.
That being a reference to his status as the journeyman who required 478 starts across 25 years to land a win on the DP World Tour, aged 48, and who then joined LIV in 2022 without receiving a penny in signing bonuses.
What has since followed is quite remarkable. We can cut that two ways – without the protection of a contract, he has kept his place on LIV on merit, never finishing below 24th in their seasonal standings, and last year he won the first two majors he contested on the over-50s senior circuit. Golf’s politics have hindered his efforts to win more in that gilded retirement community and Bland has a fair amount to say about it.
But before then, he is savouring the late bloom of his career and his appearance at Quail Hollow this week, secured via his win at the Senior PGA Championship last May.
‘You know, most guys, probably at 52 are winding their career down, and maybe not playing at the level that they used to play at,’ he says. ‘I kind of seem to be doing it slightly different.’
That extended to his final preparations for what will be only his 10th major start, almost two years on from the ninth. After jumping off a plane from back-to-back LIV events in Korea and Mexico, he headed to Stoneham Golf Club in Southampton for his next round last Monday. Matt Le Tissier was the opponent Bland used to sharpen his game.
‘I’ve known him 30-odd years,’ he says. ‘He’s a great mate and I’m a Saints fan. We play half a dozen to 10 rounds a year, 10 or 20 quid on it each time. He’s a proper player (a handicap of one, or thereabouts) and he’s taken a bit of money off me over the years.’
A third member of the group was Bland’s older brother, Heath, who was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2023. There are links to be found between their respective situations.
Englishman Bland won last year’s Senior PGA Championship to earn a spot at the US PGA
Matt Le Tissier (right) caddied for Bland at the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond back in 2002
‘I have used it to drive me on,’ Bland says. ‘I always remember around eight years ago, he had some major difficulties. He was in a coma for five or six weeks and we didn’t know if he would come out of it. I went out to play and was not in the right place at all, so this time I was determined not to make the same mistake.
‘I thought if I can play well and give him something to enjoy, even if it helps one per cent, then I was determined to channel it to make him happy.’
The good news on the more meaningful front is that Bland says Heath has ‘pretty much had the all-clear’ and is in remission. On the lesser business of hitting golf balls, the younger brother enjoyed the most successful patch of his career during the height of those family traumas.
That it predominantly occurred on the LIV tour is not a source of any regret. His motivation for defecting was never hidden – the money. And his form has been good for £12.5m across three and a half seasons. For comparison, he took around £7m from the previous 25.
‘It’s the best decision I’ve ever made,’ he says. ‘I was 49 when I when I decided to move to LIV, and I didn’t know how long it was going to last for. It could have been all over in one year. I had to earn my place, but I thought it was a risk worth taking.
‘Once I do decide to hang the clubs up, my life will be a lot more comfortable. I didn’t have the career that a Lee Westwood had, or a Paul Casey or Sergio Garcia. I wasn’t so financially secure that I never would have had to do anything else ever again, so yeah, I thought it was a gamble worth taking. Fortunately it paid off.’
There have been costs, though. Even with a thawing in hostilities between golf’s traditional tours and LIV, the PGA Tour Champions remains shut off to rebels, including a two-time winner of senior majors. Same goes for the Senior Open in the UK. Bland is aggrieved by both scenarios.
‘The Champions Tour is still closed to me,’ Bland says. ‘Obviously, they decided not to give me the exemptions that came with the majors last year. I think their decision was a little short-sighted.
Since joining LIV without a signing bonus, Bland has impressed and earned more than £12m
Bland pictured on day three of LIV Golf Korea at Jack Nicklaus GC Korea earlier this month
‘I don’t think LIV has hurt the Champions Tour. It’s not like they’ve taken any players from the Champions Tour, so why stop great players who could be there in future like Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson, Ian Poulter? You’re hurting that product.
‘I’m sure they’re praying that Tiger Woods will play in a year’s time and that’s their cash cow again. But I think they’re cutting their nose off to spite their face. That’s my opinion.’
On the subject of the Senior Open, where he and Westwood were prevented from playing last summer, Bland blames the DP World Tour and calls the decision ‘strange’.
Such are golf’s politics at present. Intriguingly, at a time when merger negotiations are stalling between the traditional tours and the Saudi Public Investment Fund, who bankroll LIV, Bland subscribes the long-rumoured prospect of a separate deal between the PIF and the DP World Tour.
‘It seems like there’s something in the pipeline – we will see on that,’ he says, though DP World Tour sources insist they will not renege on their strategic alliance with the PGA Tour.
‘I do hope that DP World do something with PIF,’ Bland adds. ‘I think it will make them a lot stronger, put them on a better financial footing and just stop giving your talent away to the PGA Tour.’
Time will tell on how those theories age. If Bland’s career is anything to go by, all possibilities are still on the table.
