Tom Watson has called for the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to come back together for the good of the professional game.
The two-time Masters champion, along with fellow golfing legends Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, spoke to the media ahead of their ceremonial tee shots at Augusta National as the three honorary starters.
Watson, 74, said it was great to have many PGA Tour and LIV players back together during Tuesday night’s champions dinner. He hoped that moment of players coming together would return to being the norm.
“Well, we all know golf is fractured with the LIV Tour and the PGA Tour doing the different things they are doing,” he said.
“You know, I got up at the champions dinner, and it was really a wonderful event. We were sitting down and we were having great stories about Seve Ballesteros and people were laughing and talking. I said to [Augusta National chairman Fred] Ridley, I said, ‘Do you mind if I say something about being here together with everybody?’ He said, ‘Please do.’
“And I got up and I said – I'm looking around the room, and I'm seeing just a wonderful experience everybody is having. They are jovial. They are having a great time. They are laughing. I said, ‘Ain't it good to be together again?’
“And there was kind of an applause from the joviality, and it quieted down, and then Ray Floyd got up and it was time to leave. And in a sense, I hope that the players themselves took that to say, you know, we have to do something. We have to do something.”
While admitting that the current landscape is complicated, Watson reiterated that he wants to see the best golfers in the world playing against each other once again.
“We all know it's a difficult situation for professional golf right now. The players really kind of have control I think in a sense. What do they want to do? We'll see where it goes. We don't have the information or the answers. I don't think the PGA Tour or the LIV Tour really have an answer right now.
“But I think in this room, I know the three of us want to get together. We want to get together like we were at that champions dinner, happy, the best players playing against each other. The bottom line: that's what we want in professional golf, and right now, we don't have it.”
Watson’s comments seem to be a growing sentiment among players and the golfing fraternity, while relations between the rival tours also appear to be thawing.
For now, however, the future of the men’s professional game remains up in the air, with negotiations between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – which bankrolls LIV Golf – still ongoing.
Nicklaus and Player both agreed with Watson that the game needs to be unified.
“The best outcome is the best players play against each other all the time,” Nicklaus said. “That's what I feel about it … I think we'll get there. And I certainly hope that happens, the sooner the better.”
“It's very simple. Anytime in any business whatsoever, not only in the golf business, there's confrontation, it's unhealthy,” Player added. “You've got to get together and come to a solution. If you cannot, it's not good. The public don't like it, and we as professionals don't like it, either.”
But Player acknowledged that the task at hand is far from simple, and players who chose to remain loyal to the PGA Tour should be compensated.
“It's a big problem because they paid all these guys to join the LIV Tour fortunes, I mean, beyond one's comprehension and the players that were loyal, three of us and others.
“Now these guys come back and play, I really believe the players, that if they are loyal, should be compensated in some way or another; otherwise, there's going to be dissension.”
