WM PHOENIX OPEN
Site: Scottsdale, Arizona.
Course: TPC Scottsdale (Stadium). Yardage: 7,261. Par: 71.
Prize money: $9.6 million. Winner's share: $1,728,000.
Television: Thursday-Friday, 4-8 p.m. (Golf Channel); Saturday, noon to 3 p.m. (Golf Channel), 3-6:30 p.m. (CBS); Sunday, noon to 3 p.m. (Golf Channel), 3-6 p.m. (CBS).
Previous winner: Thomas Detry.
FedEx Cup leader: Chris Gotterup.
Last week: Justin Rose won the Farmers Insurance Open.
Notes: Brooks Koepka plays his second PGA Tour event since leaving LIV Golf. He is a two-time winner of the Phoenix Open, most recently in 2021. ... Scottie Scheffler is going for his third straight PGA Tour win dating to September. The American Express was the fifth time he has won consecutive starts. He has never won three in a row. ... Koepka won his first Phoenix Open in 2015, the last time the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots met in the Super Bowl. ... Koepka playing means the field will have two extra spots to 123 players. ... Joel Dahmen received one of the three unrestricted sponsor exemptions. ... Sahith Theegala, who also received a sponsor exemption, is coming off consecutive top-10 finishes. He last did that in September 2024. ... This is the final week for the leading five players from the “Swing 5” to qualify for the next two $20 million signature events. ... Thomas Detry is not back to defend his title because he joined LIV Golf.
Next week: AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Online: https://www.pgatour.com/
LIV GOLF RIYADH
Site: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Course: Riyadh GC. Yardage: 7, 464. Par: 72.
Prize money: $20 million. Winner's share: $4 million.
Television: Wednesday-Friday, 10 a.m. to noon (FS1), noon to 3 p.m. (FS2); Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Fox Business Network).
Defending champion: Adrian Meronk.
2025 champion: Jon Rahm.
2025 team champion: Legion XIII.
Last tournament: Legion XIII won the Team Championship-Michigan.
Notes: This is the first tournament of the fourth season of the LIV Golf League. ... Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed have left the Saudi-funded league. Koepka has rejoined the PGA Tour, while Reed is playing a European tour schedule this year with an eye on going back to the PGA Tour. ... Jon Rahm won the individual points title without having won a tournament last year. ... This is the first LIV Golf event that goes to 72 holes. ... The Riyadh tournament is played at nights under lights, the only golf event to do that. ... For the first time, points will be distributed to all players instead of just the top 24. There also is a $2.3 million bonus pool for players whose teams finish among the top three. ... Phil Mickelson is sitting out the opening two events in Saudi Arabia and Australia because of a family health matter. He is being replaced on the HyFlyers by Ollie Schniederjans. ... The league has not announced who is replacing Koepka on Smash GC.
Next week: LIV Golf Adelaide.
Online: https://www.livgolf.com/
QATAR MASTERS
Site: Doha, Qatar.
Course: Doha GC. Yardage: 7,508. Par: 72.
Prize money: $2.75 million. Winner's share: $458,333.
Television: Thursday-Friday, 4-9 a.m. (Golf Channel); Saturday, 4:30-9 a.m. (Golf Channel); Sunday, 3:30-8:30 a.m. (Golf Channel).
Previous winner: Haotong Li.
Race to Dubai leader: Jayden Shaper.
Last week: Freddy Schott won the Bahrain Championship.
Notes: Patrick Reed is playing for the fourth straight week on the European tour. He won the Dubai Desert Classic and lost in a playoff last week in Bahrain to move to No. 2 in the Race to Dubai behind Jayden Shaper. ... This is the last stop in the Middle East until the European tour returns to Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the fall to close out the season. ... Shaper is in the field as he looks to maintain his top ranking in the Race to Dubai. ... Ryan Palmer and Luke List are the two PGA Tour members in the field from finishing inside the top 200 in the FedEx Cup. Palmer missed the cut in Bahrain last week. List missed the cut at Torrey Pines in San Diego. ... Three-time major champion Padraig Harrington is playing the fourth straight week in the Middle East. He missed the cut the last two tournaments in Bahrain and Dubai. ... The tournament has been part of the European tour schedule since 1998. Six major champions are among past winners, including Ernie Els and Adam Scott.
Next tournament: Magical Kenya Open on Feb. 19-22.
Online: https://www.europeantour.com/dpworld-tour/
ASTARA GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP
Site: Bogota, Colombia.
Course: Country Club de Bogota (Lagos). Yardage: 7,237. Par: 71.
Prize money: $1 million. Winner's share: $180,000.
Television: None.
Defending champion: Kyle Westmoreland.
Point leader: Ian Holt.
Last week: Ian Holt won the Panama Championship.
Next tournament: Argentina Open on Feb. 26-March 1.
Online: https://www.pgatour.com/korn-ferry-tour
Last week: Nelly Korda won the weather-shortened Tournament of Champions.
Next tournament: Honda LPGA Thailand on Feb. 19-22.
Race to CME Globe leader: Nelly Korda.
Online: https://www.lpga.com/
Last week: Stewart Cink won the Mitsubishi Electric Championship.
Next week: Chubb Classic.
Charles Schwab Cup leader: Stewart Cink.
Online: https://www.pgatour.com/pgatour-champions
Challenge Tour and Sunshine Tour: Circa Cape Town Open, Royal Cape GC, Cape Town, South Africa. Previous winner: Jamie Rutherford. Online: https://www.europeantour.com/hotelplanner-tour/ and https://sunshinetour.com/
Asian Tour: Philippine Golf Championship, Wack Wack Golf and CC, Manila, Philippines. Previous winner: Julien Sale. Online: https://asiantour.com/
PGA Tour of Australasia: Webex Players Series-Sydney, Castle Hill CC, Norwest, Australia. Defending champion: Nick Voke. Online: https://golf.com.au/
Royal & Ancient GC: Africa Amateur Championship, Royal Johannesburg GC, Johannesburg. Television: Wednesday-Thursday, 6-10 a.m. (Golf Channel app); Friday, 7-11 a.m. (Golf Channel app); Saturday, 5-9 a.m. (Golf Channel app). Previous winner: Bryan Newman. Online: https://www.randa.org/
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Brooks Koepka reacts after missing a birdie putt on the fourth hole on the South Course at Torrey Pines during the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
LONDON (AP) — In France, civil servants will ditch Zoom and Teams for a homegrown video conference system. Soldiers in Austria are using open source office software to write reports after the military dropped Microsoft Office. Bureaucrats in a German state have also turned to free software for their administrative work.
Around Europe, governments and institutions are seeking to reduce their use of digital services from U.S. Big Tech companies and turning to domestic or free alternatives. The push for “digital sovereignty” is gaining attention as the Trump administration strikes an increasingly belligerent posture toward the continent, highlighted by recent tensions over Greenland that intensified fears that Silicon Valley giants could be compelled to cut off access.
Concerns about data privacy and worries that Europe is not doing enough to keep up with the United States and Chinese tech leadership are also fueling the drive.
The French government referenced some of these concerns when it announced last week that 2.5 million civil servants would stop using video conference tools from U.S. providers — including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex and GoTo Meeting — by 2027 and switch to Visio, a homegrown service.
The objective is “to put an end to the use of non-European solutions, to guarantee the security and confidentiality of public electronic communications by relying on a powerful and sovereign tool,” the announcement said.
“We cannot risk having our scientific exchanges, our sensitive data, and our strategic innovations exposed to non-European actors,” David Amiel, a civil service minister, said in a press release.
Microsoft said it continues to “partner closely with the government in France and respect the importance of security, privacy, and digital trust for public institutions.”
The company said it is “focused on providing customers with greater choice, stronger data protection, and resilient cloud services — ensuring data stays in Europe, under European law, with robust security and privacy protections.”
Zoom, Webex and GoTo Meeting did not respond to requests for comment.
French President Emmanuel Macron has been pushing digital sovereignty for years. But there’s now a lot more “political momentum behind this idea now that we need to de-risk from U.S. tech,” Nick Reiners, senior geotechnology analyst at the Eurasia Group.
“It feels kind of like there’s a real zeitgeist shift,” Reiners said
It was a hot topic at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting of global political and business elites last month in Davos, Switzerland. The European Commission's official for tech sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen, told an audience that Europe's reliance on others “can be weaponized against us.”
“That’s why it’s so important that we are not dependent on one country or one company when it comes to very critical fields of our economy or society,” she said, without naming countries or companies.
A decisive moment came last year when the Trump administration sanctioned the International Criminal Court's top prosecutor after the tribunal, based in The Hague, Netherlands, issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an ally of President Donald Trump.
The sanctions led Microsoft to cancel Khan's ICC email, a move that was first reported by The Associated Press and sparked fears of a “kill switch” that Big Tech companies can use to turn off service at will.
Microsoft maintains it kept in touch with the ICC “throughout the process that resulted in the disconnection of its sanctioned official from Microsoft services. At no point did Microsoft cease or suspend its services to the ICC.”
Microsoft President Brad Smith has repeatedly sought to strengthen trans-Atlantic ties, the company's press office said, and pointed to an interview he did last month with CNN in Davos in which he said that jobs, trade and investment. as well as security, would be affected by a rift over Greenland.
“Europe is the American tech sector’s biggest market after the United States itself. It all depends on trust. Trust requires dialogue,” Smith said.
Other incidents have added to the movement. There's a growing sense that repeated EU efforts to rein in tech giants such as Google with blockbuster antitrust fines and sweeping digital rule books haven't done much to curb their dominance.
Billionaire Elon Musk is also a factor. Officials worry about relying on his Starlink satellite internet system for communications in Ukraine.
Washington and Brussels wrangled for years over data transfer agreements, triggered by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations of U.S. cyber-snooping.
With online services now mainly hosted in the cloud through data centers, Europeans fear that their data is vulnerable.
U.S. cloud providers have responded by setting up so-called “sovereign cloud” operations, with data centers located in European countries, owned by European entities and with physical and remote access only for staff who are European Union residents.
The idea is that “only Europeans can take decisions so that they can’t be coerced by the U.S.,” Reiners said.
The German state of Schleswig-Holstein last year migrated 44,000 employee inboxes from Microsoft to an open source email program. It also switched from Microsoft's SharePoint file sharing system to Nextcloud, an open source platform, and is even considering replacing Windows with Linux and telephones and videoconferencing with open source systems.
“We want to become independent of large tech companies and ensure digital sovereignty,” Digitalization Minister Dirk Schrödter said in an October announcement.
The French city of Lyon said last year that it's deploying free office software to replace Microsoft. Denmark’s government and the cities of Copenhagen and Aarhus have also been trying out open-source software.
“We must never make ourselves so dependent on so few that we can no longer act freely,” Digital Minister Caroline Stage Olsen wrote on LinkedIn last year. “Too much public digital infrastructure is currently tied up with very few foreign suppliers.”
The Austrian military said it has also switched to LibreOffice, a software package with word processor, spreadsheet and presentation programs that mirrors Microsoft 365's Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
The Document Foundation, a nonprofit based in Germany that's behind LibreOffice, said the military's switch “reflects a growing demand for independence from single vendors.” Reports also said the military was concerned that Microsoft was moving file storage online to the cloud — the standard version of LibreOffice is not cloud-based.
Some Italian cities and regions adopted the software years ago, said Italo Vignoli, a spokesman for The Document Foundation. Back then, the appeal was not needing to pay for software licenses. Now, it's the main reason is to avoid being locked into a proprietary system.
“At first, it was: we will save money and by the way, we will get freedom,” Vignoli said. “Today it is: we will be free and by the way, we will also save some money.”
Associated Press writer Molly Quell in The Hague, Netherlands contributed to this report.
This version corrects the contribution line to Molly Quell instead of Molly Hague.
FILE - Henna Virkkunen, European Commissioner for Tech-Sovereignty, Security and Democracy gives a press conference at the end of the weekly meeting of the College of Commissioners at EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Havana, File)
French President Emmanuel Macron is seen during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
