Darren Clarke believes he has "a few more decent days left on the golf course" after revealing he turned down the offer of joining the LIV Golf Invitational.

Clarke, who won The Open in 2011, is competing at St Andrews this week in the season's final major.

It marks the 150th anniversary of The Open Championship, golf's oldest major.

Yet the lingering dispute over LIV Golf - the Saudi Arabia-backed breakaway tour - continues to cast a shadow over the sport.

Clarke has now revealed he was approached to take up a broadcast role for LIV Golf, an option that the Northern Irishman was keen to explore.

However, his desire to continue playing on the PGA Tour meant he had to turn it down.

"I could still have gone and done it but it would have basically meant me retiring from playing professional golf. I wasn't ready to do that just yet," Clarke said, as quoted by BBC Sport.

"Unfortunately I asked for permission to do it and it was denied, [I am] not allowed to do it as part of my PGA Tour membership.

"I respect that decision. I would love to have gone and done it and played both but they decided in their rules and regulations that it wasn't viable for me to do so.

"I want to play. Hopefully I've got a few more decent days left on the golf course and I wasn't ready to hang the clubs up just yet."

While Clarke understands why golfers would take up the chance to play on the lucrative tour, he believes it is fair that there are consequences for those decisions.

"I can understand why the guys have done it. That's fine, they get paid a lot of money to go and join the LIV tour," the 53-year-old added.

"It's a different question if you ask should those guys be allowed to play. It's like asking should Liverpool be allowed to play in the Premier League and go play in LaLiga at the same time?

"As [DP World Tour chief executive] Keith Pelley said, every action comes with consequences. So if you want to go and do this, then you can't do that.

"It's not my position to say what's right and what's wrong but at the moment the rules are that those guys are ineligible to play."