LIV Golf and rebels Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter fire shots at PGA Tour’s elevated events changes

LIV Golf has mocked the PGA Tour for its sweeping new changes, while defectors Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter have also criticized the proposals.

The PGA Tour has reportedly approved changes to its designated events that will reduce course sizes and eliminate cuts for its 2024 season.

Elevated events, which were introduced last year as part of the fight against LIV Golf, will see their courses reduced to between 70 and 78 players and the 36-hole cutoff removed, according to golf week.

It could be suggested that the changes appear similar to the format of PGA Tour rival LIV Golf. The Saudi-backed series launched last year with smaller 12-team courses of four, 54-hole events, no cuts and guaranteed prize pools.

And the spinoff, along with its Westwood and Poulter rebels, seemed to think so.

LIV Golf’s official Twitter account appeared to mock the PGA Tour, shortly after the proposals report surfaced, hinting that it was copying the format of the rogue series.

“Imitation is the highest form of flattery,” the account posted. ‘Congratulations PGA Tour. Welcome to the future.’

Former Ryder Cup favorites Westwood and Poulter also appeared to be astute critics of the PGA Tour’s plans to revise their designated events.

Taking to Twitter, Westwood launched three tweets taking aim at the PGA Tour, beginning with the post: “Spent the last year reading how good full courses and cuts are,” followed by a sideways emoji.

The Englishman also sarcastically mocked the PGA Tour’s claim that it is “growing the game” before suggesting that it had no intention of pursuing an alliance with its European counterpart, the DP World Tour, which is currently embroiled in a legal dispute. own with LIVGolf.

He posted: ‘So…kill the WGC’s. Load the OWGR in your favor. Create 10 limited course events just for PGA tour members (such as those for the WGC). Add to that 4 majors, players, FedEx cup. That’s a full schedule for a top player. That’s growing the game. What strategic alliance?

Westwood previously said he was not convinced by the strategic alliance and that the PGA Tour “has always been a bully.”

“I’m not sold on the strategic alliance because I’ve seen how the PGA Tour has behaved over the years,” he told the Telegraph last year. ‘There hasn’t been much ‘give’. They have always been thugs.

I’ve been telling Keith [Pelley – DP World Tour CEO] and other members of your board how is this all going to go for 12 months now. I told him that getting into bed with the PGA Tour was a mistake.

He ended his mini rant by joking: ‘Where do @SharkGregNorman and @PhilMickelson stand on PIP???’

Poulter then weighed in, stating that the proposed changes bore striking similarities to LIV Golf’s format and suggested that the PGA Tour should face the same criticism that the rogue series does from the media.

He quoted a Twitter post from his former Ryder Cup teammate, writing: ‘Oh my my my… When will the penny drop with so much really going on here?

‘You don’t really need [rocket scientist] do exercise. And it sounds very similar to another product that has been talked about so much by the media and commentators. Now I’m all ears. I’m waiting.’

The proposed changes will not apply to all designated PGA Tour events, and the four majors, Players Championship and FedEx Cup playoff tournaments will not be affected.

Elevated events launched last year with the goal of increasing opportunities for top players on the tour to consistently play each other and introduced larger prize pools, with a minimum of $20 million in each event.

As the events were hastily created in an effort to combat the immediate threat posed by the arrival of LIV Golf, no changes were made to the 2023 schedule.

The changes present the opportunity to earn more money outside of the four prestigious majors and, in theory, could allow the PGA Tour to keep the best players in the sport on tour.

LIV Golf has already lured some of the biggest names in the game, including Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau, with mega-money offers.

But reducing the size of the fields could pose a risk to field members who might see it as a denial of playing opportunities.

However, the plan reportedly provides opportunities for players to play in designated tournaments and will not create a more beneficial ecosystem for its top stars.

The fields will reportedly be made up of the top 50 players who qualified for the BMW Championship during the previous season’s FedEx Cup playoffs, plus the top ten players who are not eligible in the current FedEx Cup points race. . There will also be five spots earned through performance in undesignated events.

LIV Golf also introduced a promo-downhill aspect to its series for its second season, which kicked off at Mayakoba in Mexico this past weekend.

The changes are believed to have been due to the players-only meeting led by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy in Wilmington, Delaware last August.

Proposals from the meeting, which featured 23 star players, are said to have called for smaller fields and no cuts.

However, their criteria would have reportedly seen 80 percent of players remain in elevated events from one season to the next, while the board’s proposed structure projects only 60 percent of those currently eligible to designated events will remain so.

In the Netflix docuseries, ‘Full Swing’, released last month, McIlroy also revealed that players had been ‘shocked’ by the initial plans for designated events and their mandatory skin when they were announced last summer.

There have already been three designated events this year: Jon Rahm won the Sentry Tournament of Champions and the Genesis Invitational, and Scottie Scheffler was victorious at the WM Phoenix Open.

A memo explaining the changes will reportedly be sent to Tour members later on Wednesday.