A meeting was held earlier this week before the BMW Championship in Wilmington, Delaware. A group of players, including Tiger Woods, discussed a plan that would see the PGA Tour host 18 tournaments with 60 players and $20 million payouts.
According to a report from Fire Pit Collective, when the discussion at Woods’s confab at the Hotel du Pont was leaked out, LIV loyalists gloated saying that they were copying the LIV golf with its 48-man, no-cut fields vying for $25 million reward.
Tiger Woods and Rickie Fowler touch down at Atlantic Aviation as they visit the @BMWchamps. pic.twitter.com/YK5Pnr3Suj
— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) August 16, 2022
“The best part is the lower-tier guys [on Tour] don’t even know what is coming,” a LIV golfer said, according to Fire Pit Collective.
The group also played with the idea of renouncing the Tour’s nonprofit status with Woods and Rory McIlroy rumored to be in favor of it. The change would offer the Tour greater freedom in how it runs, including the ability to attract investors and equity firms, but it would force the Tour to start paying taxes.
When asked about the meeting, the comments given were guarded.
“It was great. It was exciting. It was new. It was fresh,’’ said Xander Schauffele.
The players promised to keep the specifics confidential, according to Schauffele.
“Yeah, I think I’d be pretty unhappy if I saw one of those guys from (Tuesday) night just blabbering to you guys what we talked about,’’ Schauffele said on Wednesday. “That would be really frowned upon, and you probably wouldn’t get invited back to the meeting. Yeah, there’s a little bit of a code there, I’d say.’’
McIlroy was equally succinct. He hinted that the players would have a greater influence on Tour operations in the future, but he did not elaborate on how that may happen.
“I don’t think that’s for a public forum right now,’’ McIlroy said. “I think that’s between the players and between the Tour executives to try to manage a way forward.”
But he did answer when asked about what he would like to see.
“We need to get the top players together more often than we do,’’ McIlroy replied.
Intense competition
LIV Golf has put up a fight against the Tour from several angles. As the Tour season comes to an end the following week, more prominent players, including several recent major winners, are anticipated to join LIV.
Woods and McIlroy were the meeting’s most notable leaders. Both have publicly expressed their extreme opposition to LIV Golf and its commissioner, Greg Norman.
Woods has even declined a very significant offer from LIV Golf.
“I think that what they’ve done is they’ve turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position,” Woods said about LIV defectors at the Open Championship last month.
“What these players are doing for guaranteed money, what is the incentive to practice? What is the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt? You’re just getting paid a lot of money up front and playing a few events and playing 54 holes,” he continued.
“They’re playing blaring music and have all these atmospheres that are different.”