Woods breaks his silence on PGA Tour's bombshell merger with LIV Golf
Tiger Woods breaks his silence on PGA Tour’s bombshell merger with LIV Golf and insists he did NOT read a pre-prepared script urging players to tell the Saudis to ‘go f*** themselves’
- Documents claim a script was prepared for Tiger Woods during golf’s civil war
- Woods claims he had never seen the document and didn’t attend the meeting
- DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news
Tiger Woods has broken his silence on golf’s controversial merger between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, insisting he never received a scripted speech in which he would have urged fellow professionals to tell Saudi Arabia to ‘go f*** themselves’.
The comments, supposedly prepared by the PGA Tour last summer as LIV Golf launched and golf’s civil war intensifed, are contained in documents from an antitrust lawsuit involving the tour in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Several pages, which have appeared online, appear to show ‘talking points’ for Woods to read at a players’ meeting at the Travelers Championship in June 2022.
The comments include praise for PGA chief Jay Monahan – ‘he’s the right guy for this war. He’s a fighter’ – and advice for his fellow professionals.
‘When you ask – what can I do? I have two ideas: First, do what I did: tell the Saudis to go f*** themselves. And mean it,’ the document reads.
Tiger Woods claims he never received a script to read during a players’ meeting last June
The document suggests Woods would have heaped praise on PGA Tour chief Jay Monahan
On Sunday, however, Woods released a statement on Twitter, insisting he had never seen the document and didn’t even attend the players’ meeting.
‘In response to the talking points memo released this weekend, I have never seen this document until today, and I did not attend the players meeting for which it was prepared at the 2022 Travelers,’ wrote the 15-time major winner.
Woods has not spoken in public since the shock deal last month, when the PGA and DP World Tour announced a merger with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).
Woods has been sidelined with an ankle problem after withdrawing from this year’s Masters in April.
‘I have never seen this document… and I did not attend the players meeting,’ Woods wrote
He missed both the PGA Championship and US Open and will sit out the upcoming Open Championship.
On Monday, meanwhile, LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman was spotted at Wimbledon – sporting a LIV Golf baseball hat – as uncertainty continues over his role and the future of the rebel tour.
Monahan, Norman and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan have been invited to testify about their unlikely union in front of the US Senate on July 11.
Six-time major winner Nick Faldo recently suggested LIV would ‘fade away simply because there was not a lot of interest.’
‘Nobody’s really interested,’ Faldo said. ‘They’re not going to get the sponsorship that they want.’
Faldo also took aim at LIV’s team structure, claiming it is a poor imitation of the Ryder Cup.
LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman was spotted at Wimbledon on Monday sporting a LIV-branded hat
‘You see your mates on the putting green and say, “play well”,’ Faldo added.
‘Then you see them in the scorers’ tent and say, “What did you shoot?” That’s it. A team is out there helping, shoulder to shoulder. That’s a true team.’
‘You have the ultimate team event, the Ryder Cup, with the passion and the atmosphere,’ he said. ‘They’re not playing with the same passion and atmosphere as the Ryder Cup.’
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