explained in a Facebook post on Friday morning<\/a> that Varner was among six golfers who disregarded the club\u2019s repeated instructions to not play as a sixsome during a casual round last Tuesday ahead of this week\u2019s LIV finale in Indianapolis and were subsequently asked to leave after four holes.<\/p>\nThe club, which is public, also refuted several details in what it called a \u201crecent social media post,\u201d though searches by Golf Channel for such a post on various social media platforms were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
According to Bear Slide, Varner booked a foursome only for the group to arrive 30 minutes late and with six golfers. The club said it accommodated the change in plans, though requested that Varner\u2019s group play in two threesomes since sixsomes are against the club\u2019s policy. Members of Varner\u2019s group repeatedly insisted to play as a sixsome, first to the starter and then to another employee in the pro shop, the club said.<\/p>\n
The club added, \u201cOne of the group members told the starter that he was being rude and needed to calm down. Another person from the group defended the starter, saying that he wasn\u2019t being rude and was just enforcing the rules.\u201d The club did not name Varner as either of those golfers.<\/p>\n
Eventually, the club says Varner\u2019s party teed off as two threesomes, but after three holes, they joined up on the par-3 fourth hole. A club staffer watched the group play the hole as a sixsome, after which Varner and the five others were asked to drive their carts in and later refunded.<\/p>\n
The club said it told the group that it was \u201cno longer welcome on the course,\u201d not \u201cget the hell off the course\u201d as was apparently described in the initial report on social media. Also disputed was the claim that there were no groups behind Varner\u2019s group: \u201cAgain, completely untrue,\u201d wrote the club. \u201cThere was a group on the fourth tee waiting on them, another group on hole 3, and another two groups on hole 2.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps this group felt like they should get special privileges because of who they are and the organization they belong to,\u201d the club\u2019s statement continued. \u201cBut we believe that everyone should be treated fairly and should follow the same rules, regardless of your playing ability or connections. Bear Slide is committed to providing a great experience to everyone who plays our course. We only ask that a few rules are followed. Hopefully this helps clear the air!\u201d<\/p>\n
Varner, who teed off in Sunday\u2019s final round at Chatham Hills T-16 on the leaderboard, posted a statement, written presumably by his manager, to his Instagram story on Sunday afternoon. The statement confirmed that Varner\u2019s group was asked to leave the course, though it said Bear Slide\u2019s statement \u201ccontains several inaccuracies and does not fairly represent what occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Varner\u2019s post, Varner and his group asked if they could play a 3v3 scramble and when told no, they \u201crespected the decision and played at pace as two separate groups of three.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt no point did the six golfers combine or play as a sixsome,\u201d the statement added. \u201cThere were also no groups immediately ahead of or behind them being delayed. At the end of the fourth hole, the starter spoke with the second group and asked everyone to leave because he believed they were attempting to combine. Harold\u2019s group was already heading to the next hole, and Harold was never personally approached or asked to leave. Once the message was relayed, the entire group left respectfully and without issue. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are sharing this only to ensure that the facts are represented accurately.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After LIV Golf\u2019s Harold Varner III was kicked off an Indianapolis-area golf course last week, the club and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-823563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}