LIV Golf wanted Tiger Woods. Of course they did.
The offer was reported to be for $750 million for the world’s most famous golfer to join the upstart league.
Woods opted against that decision, and while his bank account may be a bit lighter now, he certainly didn’t need the money.
And as far as the golf decision itself goes, Woods was right.
LIV Golf has folded. Its ‘2.0’ plan floundered without landing another investor after the Saudi’s PIF pulled out.
The LIV competitors will have to figure out what to do with their futures, and while Woods’ future in golf definitely isn’t set in stone, he also doesn’t have to grapple with the aftermath of the failed LIV endeavor.
Turns out, he got this decision right.
Tiger Woods and LIV Golf
The Athletic’s Ian O’Connor wrote a fantastic column on Friday about the demise of LIV Golf.
He started it with an anecdote about Ben Hogan and a quote from Tiger Woods, writing this:
The secret, Ben Hogan said, is in the dirt. You pound range balls until your hands are about to blister and bleed in pursuit of something that will matter more to your legacy than your bank account.
Guaranteed nine-figure deals for LIV Golf defectors before they did a damn thing on the course?
“What is the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt?” Tiger Woods once asked.
Woods, himself well past the point of needing to earn it in the dirt, understood the roots of golf, understood how golfers were meant to grow their games.
He wasn’t sure how it would work in LIV.
“There’s that word again, dirt,” O’Connor writes. “It’s where you find the game’s essence. It’s where the dream chasers dig and dig under the pre-dawn and post-dusk lights, desperate to find the swing to win tournaments that will still matter long after we are all gone. Hogan chased perfection at those events. Jack Nicklaus chased immortality. Tiger chased Jack and Sam Snead.”
The golfers on the PGA Tour, the way they tell it, are chasing something more than money. Woods, from the beginning, wondered whether there was anything else to chase on the LIV Golf tour.
Tiger Woods’ $750 Million Decision
LIV Golf didn’t have enough reasons for some of the world’s best golfers, in a brief sentiment, to care.
“At its highest decibels, LIV offered none of that,” O’Connor writes. “That’s why Woods turned down a reported $750 million to participate. That’s why Nicklaus turned down $100 million-plus to run the show. LIV inspired nobody to care. It had no heart. No soul. No secrets in the dirt.”
Woods would’ve been the biggest possible coup for LIV Golf, but they didn’t land him.
At his core, Tiger remained the golfer whose father taught him the game. And that game has always been about more than money for Woods.
Tiger Woods Was Right About $750 Million LIV Golf Decision