‘It’s a huge s***show’ DP World Tour pro blasts Saudi merger

Mike Lorenzo-Vera is not the only DP World Tour player who has been left completely exasperated by golf’s sudden ceasefire.

The engaging Frenchman, is however, perhaps the most outspoken.

Lorenzo-Vera was as sincere as ever as he sat down with bunkered.co.uk at The Belfry to discuss the ramifications of a potential deal that will see his much-loved European circuit and the PGA Tour join forces with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

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He was scrolling through his Twitter feed as incredulous as the rest of us when he learned that the PIF-backers of LIV Golf, which the traditional tours had fought so vehemently against, would effectively take control of the sport at its elite level.

To say Lorenzo-Vera felt blindsided by his paymasters when reading the bombshell “framework agreement” between the previously warring factions would be putting it kindly.

“We thought it was a joke,” he says, discussing the June 6 announcement.   

“People make you believe we’re under attack and they’re just planning on something else. They make you believe they’re an enemy and try to take your tour down and then merge with them. It’s a huge s***show. 

“Hopefully there will be positive things like better purses and there could be a great impact but if they could do something a bit more honestly… it’s a players association run like a private business. There is something strange there.

“The way it works looks totally like a private business. Just tell us, ‘Guys you are not able with your sportsmen brain to handle the business side. We take care of that and you have nothing to say about it.’

“Just be clear. The way it’s been handled it’s absolutely not the players’ tour. That’s all that players want, just a little bit of honesty.”

What is clear is Lorenzo-Vera’s lack of faith in the “two or three guys” who have orchestrated this top-secret merger.

Jimmy Dunne, the vice-chairman on the PGA Tour Policy Board, opened unprecedented lines of communication between the American circuit’s commissioner Jay Monahan and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, before the deal was brokered.

However, the involvement of DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley in shaping a new union that will ultimately dictate the future of his circuit was dubious.

But Lorenzo-Vera reserved judgement for Pelley, who he feels may have been as oblivious as the players despite shielding the immediate wave of backlash in the media and the locker room.

“I’m not even sure Keith knew anything,” Lorenzo-Vera said. “I give him the benefit of the doubt but when you hear about how it happened his name was out of the discussion. Greg Norman’s name was out of the discussion.”

For now at least, it is very much a case of business as usual for Norman’s LIV series with rebels bullish that it is onwards and upwards for the fledging circuit despite the widely-held belief that its future is precarious.

The LIV train rolls into St Albans this week at Centurion Golf Club, the Hemel Hempstead course where the series held its surreal first event 12 months ago.

And there is a feeling within LIV that they are building momentum after a successful week at Valderrama, a formerly iconic European Tour and Ryder Cup venue.

But it would be fair to assume that Lorenzo-Vera won’t be tuning into the latest episode of what is marketed as “Golf. But Louder.”

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“I think you can still make a great living playing on the DP World Tour,” he insists. “I don’t like the golf at LIV. I don’t like the music, it’s very good for Instagram and it’s all about showing off.

“Of course, the guys are f***** good at golf – almost all of them, and great champions as well. But the way LIV works, it’s not my cup of tea.”

Like many, however, Lorenzo-Vera has come to accept that the unassailable power of PIF’s deep pockets has made the influx of Saudi money into the golfing establishment inevitable.

“I don’t like where it is going but those guys will be successful and they will do exactly what they want because they have so much cash that they’re going to say to anybody in front of them ‘shut up and do this’,” he says.

“Even the USA cannot fight. They have so many shares in every big company sponsoring the PGA Tour already so they can do what they want. It’s crazy.”

Another bone of contention in the fallout of the truce concerns the frustration of tour loyalists who turned down huge signing on bonuses to join LIV potentially seeing rebels welcomed back to their own circuit.

Chesson Hadley, the world No.246, raised eyebrows last month when he claimed he should be rewarded for staying on the PGA Tour, while rumours swirl over possible compensation plans for top stars.

But Lorenzo-Vera is adamant that the tour pros showing disgruntlement after missing the LIV boat should deal with the consequences of their “bad” financial decision.

“For the guys who are asking for the money back, go ask the CEO of Nike if he misses a deal, is he going to get the money back?” he proclaims. “No. You’ve f***** up your business decision. Imagine if the PGA Tour pays back the guys – it’s billions.

“It’s a bad business decision. Financially, you just have to be an adult and say, okay, next. Be a man and stop pushing the fault on someone else.

“Even if you have been advised to stay, it’s bad advice. Plenty of guys on the PGA Tour were told to stay, but they didn’t force you to stay. Your decision, your call! You just have to handle it, we’re grown men, it’s a bad call.”

The details of the PIF-PGA Tour and DP World Tour agreement show that the LIV renegades could soon have a route back to the circuits they had been ostracised from.

Lorenzo-Vera backs the ruling that could see the likes of Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter reapply for their DP World Tour membership, as long as there is a sense of contrition upon their return.

“The guys that left the proper way, speaking well and thanking the tour for all those great years they had, I have no problem,” he says. “But I believe some players left speaking really badly and should have public apologies and then come back and play. 

“I think the way Sergio left, Westwood and Poults, they left with hard words about the tour. We need those guys though. We are at the British Masters. Westwood’s not here. Poulter’s not here. The DP World Tour is different without them.”

Ben Parsons joined bunkered as a Content Producer in 2023 and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.