Oft-Maligned Pat Perez Delivers on Sunday to Help Win LIV Golf's Team Title
DORAL, Fla. – In many ways, Pat Perez embodied all that was wrong with LIV Golf.
His best days well behind him on the PGA Tour, Perez, 46, joined the rebel circuit with plenty of bombast and, perhaps, not enough playing chops.
He did not hide that he was doing it for the money, that he was upset the PGA Tour would not take a meeting with LIV Golf commissioner Greg Norman, and he may have torched a few cart paths on the way to newfound riches.
And then, on top of the guaranteed money he received upfront for signing on with LIV, Perez found himself on the powerhouse 4 Aces team along with Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Talor Gooch.
At one point during the LIV Golf Invitational Series season, the 4 Aces won consecutive team titles in Portland, Bedminster, Boston and Chicago. For each victory, the team won $3 million, or $750,000 each. Perez, not contributing as much to the team score as the other three, made $3 million from those team titles alone.
And he heard about it.
“Look,’’ Perez said. “I wasn’t exactly beating DJ when we were playing on the PGA Tour. P. Reed? Talor Gooch? I wasn’t beating those guys very often. I wasn’t beating the young kids out there. They are too good. That’s why I moved over here. It was perfect for me."
That became even more clear on Sunday when Perez’ score had to count—all four team members' did—in the season-ending Team Championship at Doral’s Blue Monster course.
Perez’ 2-under-par 70 included a late birdie and an important par-save on his final hole as the 4 Aces won by a single shot over the Punch team captained by Cam Smith. Johnson and Reed also shot 70 and Gooch shot 71.
The only players to break 70 on Sunday were Smith (65) and Jason Kokrak (68 for Smash).
MORE: Full LIV Golf Team Championship Payouts
“Yeah, all the pushback, all the negative comments, everything we’ve gotten ... at this point I don’t really care,’’ Perez said. “I mean, I don’t care. I’m paid. I don’t give a damn.
“My team played unbelievable this year. I feel like I’m really part of something that I’ve never been part of, other than me and my caddie. We’ve just been just us our whole life. To have these guys and their caddies and families and coaches and everybody, it’s just one big family now. I just couldn’t be happier. It’s unbelievable."
Perez had good reason to be happy.
Although he finished just 49th in individual earnings with $961,000 (and last out of 37 players who made at least six individual starts), he earned another $7,062,500 as part of the 4 Aces for a total of $8,023,500. Perez never made more than $4.5 million in any single season on the PGA Tour, a career that goes back 22 years.
And for a guy whose scores counted for the team in just six of the 18 rounds prior to this week, there was some pressure on Sunday.
“I feel pressure every time,’’ he said. “I just do I don’t want to let them team down. I want to play well every day, and today I was finally able to show up. I birdied two of my last three holes coming in and had a great up-and-down on the last hole. It was an unbelievable feeling to hole that last 6-footer.
“I thought we had a one-shot lead there and P. Reed birdied his last hole and then (Johnson) came down and had to make a 4-footer. It was a great atmosphere. You can’t script it any better."
To show how much it meant to Perez, he got to Doral on Oct. 22, six days before the Team Championship began. After the two-week trip to Bangkok and Jeddah and then less than a week at home in Arizona, Perez said he wanted to quickly adjust to the time zone.
He also wanted to work on his game, and did so with coach Claude Harmon III.
“I don’t think I’ve broken par here since about ’03,’’ Perez said, referring to the former Doral event on the PGA Tour. “I knew I had my hands full getting here. I worked all week on trying to get the shots right, so I could be really comfortable. And I just continued with what I was doing. I was going to have to be able to stand up on these holes and hit a shot.’’
Perez partnered with Gooch on Saturday to defeat Graeme McDowell and Richard Bland in a foursomes match that was part of the team competition that helped them advance to the final day, where all the strokes counted for the team title.
“I’ve said it before, they can’t do it without me,’’ said Perez, who clearly got the last laugh.