The PGA Tour has responded to Bubba Watson’s pay-for-play claims after the conclusion of LIV Golf’s inaugural season in Miami.
Before LIV Golf’s inaugural season came to a close with the $50m team championship in Miami – which the 4 Aces GC won – the two-time major champion gave an extensive interview to The Times of London in which he opened up on a number of topics.
One of those was his problems with anxiety. It wasn’t too long after he won his second Green Jacket that he noticed a considerable amount of weight loss.
Watson told the paper: “I thought I was going to die”. Apparently, LIV Golf has helped him “live again” (no pun intended).
Another one of his claims was that he was paid under the table to appear in PGA Tour events.
In other words, he and many other players were given guaranteed pay days. This would have gone against the PGA Tour’s regulations.
Watson said:
View this post on Instagram
The PGA Tour has now released a statement to ESPN, who originally reported Watson’s comments.
In response, a spokesperson said:
“We are aware that certain tournament sponsors may contract with a player to perform a sponsor-related activity during tournament week for which they receive nominal compensation. This is permissible under our guidelines.”
Here’s the clip of Bubba Watson talking about those criticizing the #LIVGolf guaranteed money and the same thing is happening on the PGA Tour:
“We’ve all been doing that, we’ve all been playing for guaranteed money” pic.twitter.com/fdG6kXhPfL
— LIV Golf Updates (@LIVGolfUpdates) November 3, 2022
Watson has yet to hit a shot in a LIV Golf event yet because of a knee injury.
He will be a team captain for the Niblicks GC in the 2023 LIV Golf League.
Watson announced he was signing for LIV Golf in July for a reported fee of $50m.
At the time he was the 11th major champion to sign for the controversial series, joining the likes of Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka.
More names are expected defect from the PGA Tour in the coming weeks. One of the LIV bosses, Atul Khosla, wants their new signings completed before the end of 2022.
Greg Norman, LIV’s commissioner, has targeted at least seven new signings with Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele reportedly two of his key targets.
The aforementioned Johnson won the most money on the course in 2022 in LIV Golf events.
Click here to see just how much money they all won.
Article originally appeared on: Golfmagic.com
That’s such a hilarious comment from the PGA tour. “We are aware that…..” That is such a nice rounded political phrase it’s such horse dung again coming from the PGA tour.