Bubba Watson revealed some bold plans for LIV Golf that involve teams having their own golf courses, or ‘stadiums’, while he claimed that the professional game had become “stale” prior to LIV arriving on the scene last year.
The two-time Masters champion captains the RangeGoats franchise in the LIV Golf League, where event number five of the 2023 season takes place this week in Singapore. He was asked about where he sees the Saudi-backed tour in ten years’ time, and he gave a bold look into what might be coming, while also revealing his thoughts on what the game was looking like pre-LIV.
“I know what our business plan is and business model is. We are talking about having teams from different parts of the world,” he said.
“We are talking about having our own golf courses that, basically, we’ll call them our stadiums. We are talking about having golf academies to help young golfers, but also young golfers that want to play at our level, just like any other sports team around the world. So there’s a lot of dreams and aspirations and a lot of things that we’ve already accomplished in less than a year, but we still want to keep going forward.
“Legacy-wise, I just want to be part of something that was amazing, I believe in. I believe in the right steps and what we are taking. I believe that golf was kind of stale and the only sport that I saw that was missing team atmosphere, we love The Ryder Cup, we love the Presidents Cup, so why not do it all year round?
“For me, you play high school golf as a team, college golf as a team and pro golf, there’s no team, and so now there’s a team. Legacy is just be part of something. It’s not about me or who I am It’s about all of us coming together to start LIV, to be part of LIV, and watch the game of golf grow to a place it’s never been before, and I think so far we are doing it.
“Obviously not as fast as some people want and not as nice as some people want, but I think we are in the right spot, and ten years from now, it will be a different conversation. I mean, I will probably be retired by then. But it will be fun.”
Watson was joined in his chat with the media by Bryson DeChambeau, who had nothing else to add. “I couldn’t have said it better,” DeChambeau said. “He said everything perfectly.”
It’s not the first time we’ve heard the idea of golf courses or ‘stadiums’ being built, as Ian Poulter revealed at the LIV Golf Orlando event that he had traveled to the course via helicopter to scope out any potential sites.
“I know we live very close but we decided to SpeedBird, who helps us fly around, had an option to pop in on a helicopter this morning,” Poulter said.
“So we’re just kind of doing a site visit around Orlando to see if there’s any cool areas where we might be able to build a Stix stadium golf course. Took about six minutes door-to-door and made it very easy.”