LOS ANGELES — A week has passed since the bombshell news that the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF had reached an agreement to form a new commercial entity and end the litigation between the parties.
While few details are known as to how that will play out, it hasn’t stopped players from voicing their opinions and being asked questions to which they have few answers.
Kyle Westmoreland, a PGA Tour rookie, was competing in Canada last week and attended the player meeting with Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. Westmoreland, a captain in the U.S. Air Force Academy, put his dream of playing on the PGA Tour for five years on hold while he served his country. At the meeting with Monahan, Westmoreland spoke briefly but his words carried weight. “Real quick, Jay, being prior military this is a joke.”
“Being part of the military, you can imagine where my thoughts fall on it,” Westmoreland said in a phone interview with Golfweek.
“I’m a very small fish in this,” he added. “Typical business first, moral ethics second. Current leadership has to figure out how to take ownership and convince the players, the members, that this is the right thing going forward but I think it is an uphill battle.”
“I think it could’ve been handled potentially better,” he continued. “When change like this is sprung on people without any warning and is so opposite of what was said and preached in the past you are going to lose some faith in your leadership. I want to see how they respond to this.”
Matt Fitzpatrick walks on the 12th green during a practice round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Los Angeles Country Club. Mandatory Credit: Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports
Matt Fitzpatrick, the defending U.S. Open champion, had to return the winner’s trophy and had the unenvious duty of being the first formal media press conference. It didn’t take long for the questioning to center on the biggest news in the golf world.
“I know literally nothing,” he said on Monday. In response to another question, he said he found it all very “confusing.” Do you feel like you should be compensated for not going to LIV?
“Yeah, pass,” he said as his agent standing nearby gave a hand signal advising him not answer that one.
“I think it’s been asked and answered so we’re going to move on to U.S. Open topics,” said the moderator of the press conference.
Will Zalatoris tees off on the third hole during a practice round for The Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Network
Will Zalatoris isn’t at LACC this week as he continues to recover from season-ending back surgery, but he joined Kay Adams of Fan Duel TV and voice his opinion. Zalatoris had been in New York on business when PGA Tour board member Jimmy Dunne tried to call him.
“I think when Jimmy Dunne calls from now on I’m probably going to answer,” Zalatoris said.
Zalatoris, who was ranked in the top 10 in the world when he was injured and serves on the Tour’s Player Advisory Council, said, “I can see why it happened; I don’t agree with how it happened. I don’t think anyone does. When you get an email that says this is your tour and three people basically decide your future that’s kind of hard to accept that.”
He added: “I think a lot of guys got in hot water for saying there’s a moral argument, which if you start going down the moral argument path, well, if you take a Boeing airplane, you have a Starbucks coffee, take an Uber, that’s PIF money in those companies. You can’t win that battle. I think this is the best way forward but again the way that this was done can never happen again.”
Collin Morikawa talks during a press conference for the U.S. Open golf tournament at Los Angeles Country Club. Mandatory Credit: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports
On Tuesday, two-time major winner Collin Morikawa, who grew up 40 minutes away in La Canada, cooked up a new approach to deflecting a question about the PGA Tour-PIF news.
“Yeah. I don’t know anything. So I’ll talk about my FORE Youth Project that we’re doing. It’s this Maggie Hathaway project. It’s amazing. It’s in a community that is for underprivileged kids, kids that don’t have an opportunity to play,” he said and continued to tout the effort to revitalize a local golf course thanks to the economic impact of the U.S. Open being played at an exclusive club in its backyard.
But Morikawa relented when posed the question of what was the one thing he’d like to know?
“I think for a lot of different parties there’s a lot of different reasons of why it’s happening. So we all want to know the why. We’re so interested in the why. For us, for me right now, it’s just like what’s going to happen, I don’t know. But we always want to know that why answer. Like what’s the purpose behind it?” Morikawa said. “I think there’s so many different parties involved that there’s too many answers to really put it into one underlying umbrella of the why, because I think what you’ve seen from the players versus what you’ve seen from maybe our commissioner versus the board versus Yasir versus LIV versus — there’s a lot of parties involved. Everyone has had a kind of different answer and different reaction to all this…. I don’t think we’ll ever really get an answer.”
Jon Rahm talks during a press conference for the U.S. Open golf tournament at Los Angeles Country Club. Mandatory Credit: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports
Next up for a press conference was 2021 U.S. Open champion Jon Rahm. The world No. 2 was at home taking care of his kids when the news broke.
“I thought my phone was going to catch on fire at one point. There were so many questions that I just couldn’t answer. It’s basically what it was,” he said. “I think it was that day at one point I told Kelley I’m just going to throw my phone in the drawer and not look at it for the next four hours because I can’t deal with this anymore.”
Rahm echoed the sentiment of many when he said he had no warning that such a deal was in the works. He said he wants to believe that Monahan and his leadership is the right one going forward.
“It’s clear that that’s not the consensus,” Rahm said. “I think the general feeling is that a lot of people feel a bit of betrayal from management. I understand why they had to keep it so secret. I understand we couldn’t make it through a PAC meeting with more than 10 minutes after people spilling the beans right away in some article by you guys already being out there. So I get it. I get the secrecy.
“It’s just not easy as a player that’s been involved, like many others, to wake up one day and see this bombshell. That’s why we’re all in a bit of a state of limbo because we don’t know what’s going on and how much is finalized and how much they can talk about, either.”
Billy Horschel plays his shot from the fairway on the ninth hole during the first round of the 2023 Memorial Tournament at the Muirfield Village Golf Club. (Photo: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports)
The PGA Tour-PIF news was the hot topic being discussed at the practice range too. Tour veteran Billy Horschel said he was reviewing his swing with his instructor at his office at TPC Sawgrass when a friend texted a photo of the news on TV. Horschel called Rory McIlroy, who confirmed, and then spoke with LIV’s Cameron Smith. Horschel said his confidence in Monahan wasn’t shaken.
“I have a different relationship with Jay living in Ponte Vedra. I understand how a lot of guys can lose trust in Jay but at the same time I’ve started to find out over the last week that Jay answers to a board like a lot of CEO’s in this world. Were some of the decisions driven by Jay or driven by the board? In my view, maybe some of the decisions have been driven more by the board than by Jay. I still trust him. You can never get 200 tour pros to agree to how the Tour should be going forward. I think Jay is the right man for the job. Does that mean I give him my blind support? No,” Horschel said. “What I don’t get is some guys have gone on social media and done some podcasts and been massively critical of Jay and said certain things I don’t think they would say directly to Jay. If you have an issue with someone, be honest with them. I want Jay to be our commissioner but there are a lot of things that need to play out.”
“Is this the best deal? Is it really going to help the Tour in 25 years?” Horschel wondered. “We need to make sure the Tour is in a position that it can still be viable and do the things to continue to be the best tour in the world. Some of that is making decisions and changes that not everyone is going to like out here.”
Martin Kaymer tees off during the first round of the LIV Golf Invitational Tulsa at Cedar Ridge Country Club. Mandatory Credit: Joey Johnson-USA TODAY Sports
Martin Kaymer, the 2014 U.S. Open champion, was at home in Germany last Tuesday and received a phone call from one of the LIV board members with the news of the deal shortly before it was announced publicly.
“It was the plan all along. It was a fairly short call, 3-4 minutes. He didn’t give me any details, I read them like everyone else,” Kaymer said.
“If I had one question, can we all find a way forward where we can play any where we want no matter what tour we’re on? Is everybody getting world ranking points soon? I hear they are changing the rankings for 2024 onwards. Will we get ranking points so we can qualify for majors?” he said.
Asked if he would be willing to pay fines to rejoin the other circuits, Kaymer said, “I’ve already paid over a million dollars in fines to the DP World Tour, well the LIV Tour has paid them for me. I think I’ve paid enough so far.”
English
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Spanish