Louis Oosthuizen confident solution to golf's civil war is coming - 'There's no need for animosity'

Oosthuizen is one of a number of high-profile golfers who accepted lucrative offers to join the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Series, a breakaway league that has been met with outright hostility from the game's traditional powers.

As a well-liked figure on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, the South African has managed to escape some of the harsher criticism reserved for some of his fellow LIV Golf defectors, although he also aided his cause by the manner in which he made the switch.

He vowed not to criticise the circuits that helped make him a name in golf, and struck the kind of conciliatory tone that drew praise from both Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, and Keith Pelley, the DP World Tour chief executive.

As a result, Oosthuizen has been largely welcomed at this week's DP World Tour event at St Andrews, the Alfred Dunhill Links Invitational, the sight of his only major victory back in 2010.

Speaking to The Telegraph's James Corrigan, the former Open champion explained his reasons for joining LIV, fueled by a desire to step away from the relentless grind of professional golf a bit sooner than later.

"I chatted to them and explained my position and said it was nothing at all to do with their product or how I'd been treated or anything," he said. "But I'm turning 40 in a few weeks, was only maybe going to have another year on the grind of tours and, honestly, I was completely done with playing a full schedule.

"Initially I wasn't sure, but I sat down with my wife and when we looked it just all fitted together. We'd moved into the ranch in spring - we were brought up around farms and it was always our aim to have our own - and thought 'why not? Let's go for it - this is right for us. People might wonder 'well, you finished runner-up in two majors last year, with four top threes in two years' and say 'you're so close to getting a second' and it did give me another burst, another lease of my sporting life. And I won't retire, full-stop, I'll just play less.

"The thing is it was never the plan to keep going and going, there are other things I want to do with my life. Golf is brilliant in that it gives you these options to continue as a pro, but there is a danger that it just decides for you what's next and for me I didn't want just to stay on that path of playing all the time. With its 14 events and maybe one or two extra here and there - including of course the Open - LIV gives me that chance for the next few years. Maybe I would join the European Tour again, as you only need to play four events or so. Things need to happen for that to be possible."

LIV golfers are currently banned from playing on the PGA Tour, while a court case will soon determine if the same suspension will apply on the other side of the Atlantic, but Oosthuizen is confident an amicable solution will be found in time.

"I saw what Rory [McIlroy] said here earlier this week about the game ripping itself apart and the need for the guys in all camps to get together and talk and figure something out and, in truth, I've always thought that's inevitable eventually.

"LIV isn't going anywhere and, of course, neither are the Tours and after the lawyers do their thing, it will come to a point when they will all get around a table and find a solution. I'm not sure where I'll be in my career by then, but it needs to happen. There is no need for any animosity. I've encountered none here this week and that's the way it should be."