LIV Golf’s Lee Westwood Reacts to PGA Tour Changes: ‘Just a Copy of What LIV is Doing’

The battle between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour wages on.

Former PGA player Lee Westwood is mocking the changes made by the PGA in response to LIV Golf. He said he only could laugh at the changes the PGA Tour announced this week in response to LIV Golf trying to disrupt the Tour. Westwood was one of the first PGA Tour members to make the switch to the the Saudi backed LIV Golf Invitational Series.

Westwood spoke about what he perceives as comical.

“I laugh at what the PGA Tour players have come up with,” Westwood told Golf Digest in an interview published Thursday. “It’s just a copy of what LIV is doing. There are a lot of hypocrites out there. They all say LIV is not competitive. They all point at the no-cut aspect of LIV and the short fields.”

“Now, funnily enough, they are proposing 20 events that look a lot like LIV,” Westwood said. “Hopefully, at some point they will all choke on their words. And hopefully, they will be held to account as we were in the early days.”

Westwood also took shots at the PGA Tour for how it has treated the DP World Tour, in which he was also a member. The DP World Tour also suspended and fined its members for playing in LIV Golf events.

“I’m not convinced by the strategic alliance because I’ve seen how the PGA Tour has behaved over the years,” Westwood said. “There’s not much ‘give.’ They have always been bullies and now they are getting their comeuppance. All the PGA Tour has done since Tiger [Woods] came on tour is up the prize purses. In turn, that has taken all the best players from Europe away from the European Tour. They’ve had to play in the States, taking all their world ranking points with them. That was their strategy: ‘Put up the money. Get all the players. Hog all the world ranking points.’ Which becomes self-perpetuating. What we have seen over the last few months is just LIV doing what the PGA Tour has done for the last 25 years.”

However Westwood still doesn’t want to talk politics when it comes to the Saudi Backed LIV:

“The questions on the Saudi government and their policies are unanswerable,” Westwood says. “My response is just to try and not answer them. I’m not a politician; I’m a golfer. But I do know that sport can be used as change for good.

“Loads of other countries are doing that. And have done it. Besides, I don’t understand why golf is being taken to task so much. Why is football [soccer] not being held to the same standard for having the World Cup in Qatar? Why was [heavyweight boxer] Anthony Joshua not criticized more for fighting in Jeddah last week?”

If the PGA gets better because of LIV then so be it , glad it paid off for the players who stayed loyal to the PGA, now they get to play in a much improved tour with the best players, courses and trophies that actually carry some kind of legacy.

Westwood should just stay quiet and count his money he took to defect.

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