The decision by many of the world’s best professional golfers to leave the PGA Tour and play instead for the Saudi Arabia-funded LIV Golf was heavily scrutinized by members of the PGA, who turned down the offer. In a recent excerpt from Alan Shipnuck’s book “LIV and Let Die,” the divide between players on the two tours was explained in great detail.
Plenty of PGA Tour players, like Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas, were outspoken about their disdain for players who chose to take a huge sum of money to play for the LIV Tour, abandoning the PGA Tour entirely. With every big-name player that jumped ship, the rift between the two tours grew ever larger.
Star players like Brook Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and Bryson DeChambeau accepted offers rumored to be nine figures to leave the PGA Tour permanently and take up growing the LIV Golf brand. Despite the huge, life-changing sums of money each player accepted, many on the PGA Tour chose to look down upon the new mega-millionaires.
In the book “LIV and Let Die,” Alan Shipnuck described a night in a club in Ireland where Brooks Koepka and fellow LIV member Pat Perez were discussing their ongoing feud with the PGA Tour’s star players. According to the book, Koepka took major issue with players who grew up in wealthy homes, like Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, and talked poorly about his decision to accept LIV’s offer.
To Koepka, that $130 million dollar offer was generational wealth and life-changing money. According to the book in an excerpt shared by the New York Post, Koepka said, “F–k all of those country club kids who talk s–t about me.”
He didn’t stop there, Koepka continued bashing Thomas and Spieth, saying, “You think I give a f–k what they think? You think I care what people say about me? I just had three surgeries, and I’m supposed to turn down $130 million? I grew up with nothing. After signing that contract, the first person I called was my mom. We both cried.”
The messy divide that LIV Golf’s creation led to in professional golf may soon be over, as LIV and the PGA Tour announced a merger in June of this year. Surely, however, animosity between players, like what is described above, will not fade away so quickly.
All players who left for LIV are still subject to a ban from PGA Tour events, so the only time that both sides meet is during Major Championships like The Masters. At those events, there is a clear divide as players warm up, with LIV players practicing in one group and PGA Tour members practicing in another.
Whether the divide will continue into the future with the tours merging is yet to be seen, but if this year’s Ryder Cup was any indication, there is still some animosity between the groups. Koepka was the only LIV Golf member picked for the event, even though many fans felt that others were also deserving.
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