Golf legend insists he has “no time for LIV whatsoever”

Another day, another golf icon taking a potshot at LIV Golf.

Since the Saudi-funded league emerged a little over two years ago, it has endured all kinds of criticism from fans, commentators, players and former players alike.

Despite all that, it continues to persevere and, this week, stages the penultimate event of its second full regular season.

LIV Greenbrier will be followed by an event in Chicago a month from now, the week before the Team Championship takes place in Dallas.

After that, LIV goes back into hibernation until February, making good on its promise to give players less events to play in and more time at home with their families.

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However, if one major champion had his way, the league wouldn’t resume in February. Instead, it would be gone for good.

Speaking to media in his native New Zealand, Sir Bob Charles pulled no punches in a withering assessment of LIV Golf, insisting that if it ever comes to his country – as has been speculated – he will make sure to get as far away from the action as possible.

“The traditional game that I’ve played for 50 years travelling around the world is in total upheaval and they’re causing havoc,” the 1963 Open champion told RNZ.

“They’re causing problems, and I just have no time for LIV whatsoever.

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“[The players] have been offered some obscene sums of money and some of the guys that play, I’ve never ever heard of. I don’t know that they deserve the money which they have been offered.”

Charles, widely considered New Zealand’s greatest male golfer of all time, won six times on the PGA Tour between 1963 and 1974, so it should come as little surprise that his loyalties lie with the US-based circuit.

Nonetheless, he was scathing in his appraisal of the upstart league.

“It’s not the traditional game,” he added. “We had a certain set of rules, we had an organisation and they’re a bunch of boys playing in short pants.

“I’ve got nothing nice to say about them whatsoever.”

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor