Tensions between the LIV Golf defectors and the PGA Tour loyalists were raised again after Ashley Perez took aim at Tiger Woods in a recent outburst.
Soon after it emerged the Saudi-funded circuit has filed a lawsuit attempting to oust DP World Tour boss Keith Pelley, the wife of LIV rebel Pat Perez made a more personal approach on Monday. Her words appeared underneath an Instagram video posted by @Golfballing, in which Woods admitted the end of his glittering career could be nigh.
"I can hit golf balls. It's the walking that just hurts," the 46-year-old told reporters, having struggled to regain his previous levels following a life-threatening car crash in February 2021. It was feared arguably the greatest golfer of all time would never play again, but Woods returned at the 2022 Masters.
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Despite reports an empty, unlabelled pill container was found in Woods' car at the crash site, the 46-year-old was not found to be under influence of any drugs nor alcohol at the time. That didn't prevent Ashley Perez from airing her suspicions on Instagram, however.
“Literally why driving under the influence is ILLEGAL," she replied to the @Golfballing post. "I don’t feel bad for him. Thank god he didn’t kill anyone. See ya.”
The two camps in golf's ongoing turf war are poised to discover the role LIV will play in the sport's landscape moving forward. LIV golfers want events on the Saudi-backed competition to receive golf ranking points that will allow them to keep competing for majors, which will be a defining point in whether many players stay on with the PGA's more lucrative rival.
Perez, 46, recently accused Woods of hypocrisy in response to comments the latter made regarding the motivation to play under the LIV banner. Woods suggested financial security had to be a driving factor for those jumping ship for LIV, which didn't sit quite right with Perez.
“That’s the stupidest s*** I have ever heard of in my life," he told host Claude Harmon III on the Son of a Butch podcast. "That’s one of the stupidest things I think he has said. The incentive is the fact that last place is 120,000, first place is four million. You cannot win four million on the PGA Tour.
"Now, next year you might; they finally got the perks. But last time I checked, he signed a $40 million deal right out of college, was flying on the Nike jet. He found incentive. He could have shut it down right then.”
