The PGA Tour recently announced some major changes in order to compete with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series.
Taking a play out of the LIV handbook, the PGA Tour will implement larger purses for tournament events and increase pay for the tour’s top players.
Lee Westwood, one of the players who ditched the PGA Tour to join LIV, called out these changes as “just a copy” of the new widely-criticized series.
“I laugh at what the PGA Tour players have come up with,’’ Westwood said, per Golf Digest. “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. 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.’’
There are some glaring issues with Westwood’s argument.
While the PGA Tour will implement increased pay for top players, these changes do not include any 54-hole, no-cut tournaments. There will also be no team-based competitions added to the PGA Tour schedule.
The tension between these two golf organizations doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon.