“Hypocrite” – New signing Pat Perez called out for historic anti-LIV remarks

Pat Perez has come in for criticism after old remarks in which he explicitly ruled out ever joining the LIV Golf Series surfaced.

Perez, 46, was announced as the latest player to defect from the PGA Tour to the Saudi-funded start-up circuit during the final round of the inaugural LIV event near London yesterday.

In doing so, the world No.168 has made himself ineligible to play PGA Tour events for an indefinite period, following commissioner Jay Monahan’s decision to suspend all players who play on the new Greg Norman-fronted tour.

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Whilst undisclosed, it is understood that Perez has accepted an offer of around $14million to sign with LIV. That’s roughly half of the prize money he has made from 515 PGA Tour appearances. 

However, no sooner had he been confirmed than tweets branding him a hypocrite started to fly. 

That’s all because of a comment he made on his Instagram account on February 28.

Responding to a user who asked him if he was going to be “getting on that Saudi train”, Perez replied: “f*** no”.

Ten days earlier, during the Genesis Invitational in California, Perez had said that he had not been approached by anybody from the LIV Series, which he branded “kind of a joke”.

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“The biggest question is there’s no guarantee with that tour,” he said. “The PGA Tour’s going to be around a long time. If 60 guys leave, there’s going to be 60 more guys that come up and fill those spots. 

“There’s a line from here to Florida of guys who want to play on the PGA Tour, so it’s not a lack of players.”

Predictably, social media users were quick to point out the “hypocrisy” of his U-turn.