'It's Just a Copy of What LIV Is Doing': Lee Westwood Blasts PGA Tour's Enhancements
ATLANTA – Lee Westwood isn’t impressed with what the PGA Tour and commissioner Jay Monahan announced Wednesday that will see an increase in elevated events with larger purses and commitments from top players to compete a minimum of 20 times.
Westwood, 49, a longtime player on both the PGA Tour and European Tour who signed with LIV Golf earlier this year, told Golf Digest that the Tour’s plans are “just a copy’’ of what LIV Golf is doing.
“I laugh at what the PGA Tour players have come up with,’’ Westwood said of the plan unveiled at the Tour Championship. “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.’’
Westwood was referencing the fact that many have suggested LIV is not a competitive tour due to playing just 54-hole events with only 48 players, no cuts and set fields.
The PGA Tour has not exactly copied that model. It won’t have 54-hole events and many of the elevated tournaments will still be bigger fields with cuts. There is also no team aspect, like LIV is employing. But the $20 million purses and getting the best players to compete in the same events are similar to the LIV model.
Westwood, who has 25 European Tour (now DP World Tour) victories to rank eighth all-time, has resigned his PGA Tour membership but is still playing the DP World Tour and said he plans to play its flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship, next month.
But he said he is concerned about its future and its relationship with the PGA Tour, which entered into an alliance a few years ago and adjusted qualification criteria earlier this year that will see the top 10 players on the DP World Tour earn exempt status on the PGA Tour.
“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.’’
Despite considerable vitriol, Westwood said he has not experienced any from fellow players.
“They have been asking questions mostly,’’ he said. “They want to know what it is like at LIV. I think they all know how much I have supported the European Tour over the last 30 years. I doubt you’d find someone at my level who has supported it more. When I won in America in 1998, I stayed on the European Tour and turned down PGA Tour membership. When I won in 2010, I did the same.
“When I was world No. 1, I didn’t go to America; I stayed on the European Tour. I stayed and played through COVID. Not many others did that. I ‘ve always loved the European Tour. Over my career I’ve just dipped in and out of America.’’