We all know how creative LIV Golf gets! The league used little astronauts as tee marks at LIV Golf Houston to keep the city’s history alive. While it’s only one of LIV Golf’s creativity, Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson also believed that LIV pushed the PGA Tour to make some improvements. However, Billy Horschel doesn’t seem to agree with that.
Last year Phil Mickelson spoke with Golf Digest, two weeks after Jay Monahan’s announcement that outside the four majors and the PLAYERS Championship, other events would have reduced field sizes and no 36-hole cut. Lefty was naturally asked how much it was because of LIV Golf.
“I think that it’s really a good thing. I’m happy to see it. I’m happy to see it for the [PGA] Tour. I think there will always be a need and a want for traditional golf. And there’s always an opportunity to innovate and to allow LIV to be additive and create something new and different,” said 6x major winner. Not only that he also talked about how fans and sponsors exactly want what LIV Golf is doing and he “glad that they [the PGA Tour] are” following that model.
However, 8x PGA Tour winner Billy Horschel respectfully disagrees. He was on the Flushing it Golf podcast and talked about how the Tour was already discussing improvements way before LIV’s introduction. “No, those changes are nothing that has been talked about, you know in my time on the PGA Tour… a handful of years before even LIV was even talked about, I remember talking with executives and people in charge about how to improve the PGA Tour and they were aware what they needed to do,” said the 37-year-old.
After a month of the announcement, LIV CEO, Greg Norman also took a jab at the tour saying “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” highlighting that it was LIV Golf that forced the American Tour to consider these changes.
Norman also stated that LIV Golf is a serious competitor to the PGA Tour, which prompted them to increase the prize money and adjust the structure of their events. While talking about it Norman added “LIV Golf is the best thing that has ever happened to the careers of professional golfers. The PGA Tour never would have changed without it.”
Speaking of changes, Monahan first introduced four new events with a minimum purse of $20m each. He also introduced the concept of a “top player,” where a professional golfer who finishes in the top 20 of the current Player Impact Program will be recognized as a top player. While Mickelson and Norman talked about how LIV Golf pushed Monahan’s Tour to improve, fans took a further step and said that the PGA Tour is copying LIV Golf.
