A midnight flight out of bordering Oman on a jet arranged by Jon Rahm brought seven players out of a war zone and into safety 24 hours before the start of LIV Golf Hong Kong, according to Golf.com.
LIV Golf was set to begin play in the annual event in Hong Kong on Thursday and made an attempt to arrange travel from Dubai, which has been struck repeatedly during an escalating conflict involving Iran, Isreal and the United States.
U.S. officials called for American citizens to evacuate 14 Middle East nations, but only after damage had already been done around Dubai International Airport, grounding flights. Several LIV Golf players and caddies live in the United Arab Emirates.
According to the report, Rahm’s plan required players to coordinate from different locations in the Middle East to travel toward Oman. The driving distance from downtown Dubai to the border is more than 90 minutes. The usual flight time from Oman to Hong Kong is approximately seven hours.
Golf.com reported Lee Westwood, Anirban Lahiri, Thomas Detry, Sam Horsfield, Tom McKibbin, Adrian Meronk and Caleb Surratt and a caddie traveled in a shuttle van to the Oman border under the cloak of darkness before switching to another shuttle for transportation to an airstrip where the aircraft waited to fly the crew to Hong Kong.
“It was terrifying,” Surratt told Golf.com via text on Tuesday. “But since then, it’s been OK. It was bad Sunday and Monday here with missile interceptions, but all day today was fine.”
McKibbin and Surratt are teammates on Rahm’s Legion XIII.
They landed just before midnight local time and all are expected to participate in the event this weekend.
Multiple reports indicated Laurie Canter, an eighth LIV Golf player who was in Dubai, was not on the flight but was expected to arrive in time for the start of the event. By late Wednesday, a limited opening of the main airports in Dubai and Oman was permitted.
–Field Level Media
