LIV Golf star Pat Perez described Tiger Woods’ comments about the lack of incentive on the LIV Golf Tour as “the stupidest s*** I have ever heard of in my life.”
Speaking on the Son of a Butch podcast with Claude Harmon III, Perez addressed the 15-time major champion’s comments from the 150th Open Championship in which he said, “what is the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt?”
If you came in last place at an event on the Saudi-backed series in 2022, you banked $120,000. The riches provided by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia were too much for some players to turn down. Perez has admitted this was the case for him.
Woods used the term “guaranteed money” when discussing the breakaway league at St Andrews, but Perez took issue with these comments and compared the situation to Woods’ lucrative endorsement deals which he signed at the beginning of his career on the PGA Tour.
“That’s the stupidest s*** I’ve ever heard of in my life. That’s one of the stupidest things I think he’s said,” Perez said.
“The incentive is the fact that last place is $120,000, first place is $4 million. You cannot win $4 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 an incentive. He could have shut it down right then.
“He had a lot of guarantees. You know what, and he was the hottest thing. He’s made so much money off the course, he found incentive to go. But again, he only played how many tournaments.
“He didn’t go – I never saw him at John Deere, never saw him supporting all these events. He played in the majors, he played in the WGCs and that was it. He played Torrey. Never played Riv. But he’s worth every dime. In fact, like I said, he’s two billion short of where he should be, I think.”
In the same session with Harmon, Perez slammed Phil Mickelson and mentioned the “different hate” he has for the six-time major champion who played in every LIV Golf event in his inaugural season.
The 46-year-old, who won three times on the PGA Tour, did not go into the “unforgivable” line that Mickelson crossed with him.
Perez played in seven of the eight events on the rebel series which will grow to 14 events in 2023. He earned over $8 million without making an individual top 10.
A large chunk of his earnings came while playing on the 4 Aces team. With Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Talor Gooch, he won four consecutive team events which won them $3 million each in the process.
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