Lee Westwood says new-look PGA Tour only a ‘copy’ of LIV Golf, factors finger at ‘hypocrites’
ATLANTA — Former world No. 1 Lee Westwood mentioned he solely might snigger on the sweeping adjustments the PGA Tour introduced Wednesday in response to the rising menace of LIV Golf.
Westwood, who was among the many first PGA Tour members to defect to the Saudi Arabian-financed LIV Golf Invitational Collection, mentioned his former tour is borrowing a number of concepts from his new one.
“I snigger at what the PGA Tour gamers have give you,” Westwood advised Golf Digest in an interview printed Thursday. “It is only a copy of what LIV is doing. There are a number of hypocrites on the market. All of them say LIV isn’t aggressive. All of them level on the no-cut side of LIV and the brief fields.”
On Wednesday, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan introduced that the PGA Tour’s high gamers had dedicated to compete in not less than 20 tournaments, together with 13 elevated occasions that may have common purses of $20 million.
In contrast to LIV Golf occasions, most PGA Tour tournaments are 72 holes and have 36-hole cuts. LIV Golf occasions are 54 holes with no cuts.
“Now, funnily sufficient, they’re proposing 20 occasions that look lots like LIV,” Westwood mentioned. “Hopefully, sooner or later they are going to all choke on their phrases. And hopefully, they are going to be held to account as we had been within the early days.”
Monahan has suspended greater than two dozen PGA Tour gamers, together with previous main champions Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed, for competing in LIV tournaments with out conflicting-event releases from the PGA Tour.
Westwood, who in 2010 turned the primary British golfer since Nick Faldo to carry the No. 1 place within the Official World Golf Rating, additionally criticized the PGA Tour for the way it has handled the DP World Tour, during which he was additionally a member. The PGA Tour and DP World have a strategic alliance; the DP World Tour additionally suspended and fined its members for enjoying in LIV Golf occasions.
“I am not satisfied by the strategic alliance as a result of I’ve seen how the PGA Tour has behaved over time,” Westwood mentioned. “There’s not a lot ‘give.’ They’ve all the time been bullies and now they’re getting their comeuppance. All of the PGA Tour has accomplished since Tiger [Woods] got here on tour is up the prize purses. In flip, that has taken all the most effective gamers from Europe away from the European Tour. They’ve needed to play within the States, taking all their world rating factors with them. That was their technique: ‘Put up the cash. Get all of the gamers. Hog all of the world rating factors.’ Which turns into self-perpetuating. What we’ve got seen over the previous few months is simply LIV doing what the PGA Tour has accomplished for the final 25 years.”
