{"id":457757,"date":"2026-03-04T21:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T21:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457757\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T21:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T21:42:15","slug":"several-liv-players-delayed-in-middle-east-amid-conflict-expected-to-compete-in-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457757\/","title":{"rendered":"Several LIV players delayed in Middle East amid conflict expected to compete in Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several LIV Golf players based in or traveling through the Middle East experienced travel delays to this week\u2019s tournament amid ongoing conflict in the region, though all remain on the tee sheet and are expected to compete.<\/p>\n

Eight players who were in the Middle East practicing ahead of this week\u2019s LIV event in Hong Kong, which begins Thursday, had initially been unable to get out as flights were canceled and airports closed following joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on Saturday and retaliatory attacks by Iran on Israel and U.S. facilities in the region. The X outlet Flushing It reported<\/a> that those players were Laurie Canter, Thomas Detry, Sam Horsfield, Anirban Lahiri, Tom McKibbin, Adrian Meronk, Caleb Surratt and Lee Westwood.<\/p>\n

But LIV confirmed that the league and its teams were in constant communication with the players and provided support to them and their families to ensure safe travel to Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Golf.com\u2019s Alan Bastable reported<\/a> that seven of the players, all but Canter, had been able to fly out of Oman on a private flight commissioned by Jon Rahm, who captains the Legion XIII team that includes McKibbin and Surratt, who had both been among those prepping in Dubai since competing in last month\u2019s event in Australia. Citing an anonymous source, Bastable added that those players took ground transport from Dubai to the Oman border, then caught another transport to the airstrip, where they departed at 3:02 p.m. ET, 12:02 a.m. local time Wednesday in Oman.<\/p>\n

McKibbin told Golf Channel later Wednesday that he had arrived in Hong Kong while all eight players were listed on the Round 1 groupings provided by LIV.<\/p>\n

The LIV players weren\u2019t the only professional athletes stranded in Dubai. Several ATP players, including star Daniil Medvedev, wrapped up the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Sunday. Medvedev won by forfeit due to injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one knows when we will be able to take off,\u201d Medvedev told the outlet Bolshe! on Sunday<\/a>. \u201cThat is, it\u2019s not clear whether [airspace closures] will last long or not. Therefore we are just waiting to see, let\u2019s say, what will happen in the next hours and days.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ATP said Monday in a statement, \u201cThe health, safety and wellbeing of our players, staff and tournament personnel is our priority. … At this stage, travel arrangements remain subject to ongoing assessment in line with airline operations and official guidance. We will continue to provide appropriate support to ensure players and their teams can safely depart when conditions allow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of State has urged U.S. citizens to leave the region using available commercial transportation \u201cdue to serious safety risks.\u201d A CNN report added that while some flights have left airports in \u201cU.S.-friendly Persian Gulf states,\u201d including U.A.E., the situation remains fluid as a \u201cwide corridor of airspace over the Middle East remained closed on Tuesday.\u201d Both Dubai hubs as of Tuesday were operating at limited capacity.<\/p>\n

LIV had multiple reserves either on site or flying in just in case some players were unable to make it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several LIV Golf players based in or traveling through the Middle East experienced travel delays to this week\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-457757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}