Padraig Harrington is among a strong Irish cohort at this weekend's Irish Open, with the 53-year-old among the first to tee off on Thursday morning.
The tournament takes place this year at Royal County Down, with a star-studded field fighting it out for glory.
Three-time Major champion Harrington is hoping to take his second win in his home event, having triumphed in 2007 at Adare Manor.
Harrington and Luke Donald, both former Ryder Cup captains, are joined by the likes of Edoardo Molinari, Robert Macintyre, and Irish Major winners Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry in the field for this weekend's tournament.
However, there is a conspicuous absence of LIV golfers in the field, as debate rages on as to how to integrate the contentious Saudi-backed breakaway tour into golf's established PGA and European tours.
Speaking ahead of this weekend's Irish Open, Padraig Harrington made an unconventional suggestion on how golf's bigwigs could solve the dilemma.
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Padraig Harrington thinking outside the box with unusual LIV suggestion
Padraig Harrington spoke to the media after Wednesday's star-studded Irish Open Pro-Am, which saw the likes of Rob Kearney, Kieran Donaghy, and many more take to the Royal County Down course.
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Harrington was asked about the absence of LIV Golf players from this weekend's Irish Open.
One of the core issues with the LIV debate is the Ryder Cup question. With LIV events not eligible for World Ranking points, and LIV players largely frozen out of PGA and DP World Tour events, wildcard picks will likely become the only route for LIV stars to qualify for Ryder Cup teams.
With merger negotiations continuing at a snail's pace between the head honchos of both PGA and LIV, Padraig Harrington put forward an unorthodox suggestion on Wednesday as to how the merger could eventually be executed.
You start adding in more events and who are you fighting against for players at that stage? Most players say they want to play less so it's hard to add another 14 tournaments and have players have dual membership.
So ideally for me I would suggest that every PGA Tour and European Tour event should have four invites for LIV players, and every LIV event should have four invites for an International team.
That way we have enough crossover that we can get Jon Rahm to play the European Tour and we get Abraham Ancer to play the Mexican Open. If four PGA Tour guys come over, it's not like they are going to be welcomed with open arms; so that creates buzz at their events.
Like if we had four LIV players this week, they would be focused on them, and people would be watching it. Some people would be wanting them to do well and some people would be wanting them to do badly.
But that would create a bit of a buzz and vice versa, if four PGA Tour players or four international players turned up at a LIV event, they wouldn't want that team winning, they wouldn't want the outsiders, so that creates a bit of a buzz for them.
That's the only solution I can see in golfing terms.
It's a bold suggestion though, with negotiations seemingly going nowhere fast, it could be one worth considering for those at the top in both the PGA and LIV Golf.
Padraig Harrington tees off at 8am in the Irish Open first round on Thursday, alongside Nicolai Hojgaard and Thomas Detry. The tournament will be broadcast live on Sky Sports Golf and RTÉ Two.
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