LIV Golf target confirms move to Saudi-funded league

So far in 2023, it’s been a case of all quiet on the Middle Eastern front, with the Saudi-funded LIV Golf League yet to announce any new signings ahead of its impending second season.

Despite being linked with a string of players – most notably Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele – the Greg Norman-fronted enterprise has not officially unveiled any new signings, despite its first event of 2023 being just a fortnight away. 

It appears, however, that one player has let the cat out of the bag and confirmed that he’ll be playing alongside Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Co. on the upstart tour this year. 

Speaking to the El Tiempo newspaper in his homeland, Colombian pro Sebastian Munoz revealed that the opportunity to stay close to his South American friends and – you guessed it – spend more time at home with his family convinced him to swap the PGA Tour for LIV.

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“It all started in August and, at first, there was a lot of internal debate,” revealed the 30-year-old. “What am I looking for from golf? What am I looking for from life? Many players began to leave for the LIV, there were fewer and fewer Latinos left on the PGA Tour, so I made the decision to keep what I like about golf, that community with which I have stayed in golf. 

“The timing also had an influence. Now that I am going to be a father soon, it will guarantee me to be at home more. It will also allow me to stop putting pressure on myself, to play for so long sometimes without meaning. 

You want to win every week, although there is not much difference from a big event to a small event. This is going to re-energise me for all the events I’m going to play. I’m happy.”

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World No.93 Munoz, who won his only PGA Tour title in 2019 at the Sanderson Farms Championship, also appeared to reveal that he will be joining the Torque GC team captained by Chilean Joaquin Niemann, where he’ll be joined by another long-mooted LIV target, Mito Pereira.

“I would not have been interested in LIV if it hadn’t been for the possibility of making a team with my friends, something I never imagined possible,” he said. “That did not exist a year ago.  

“Joaquin was playing well and they offered him a large amount of money to captain a team. I left the matter in his hands: if he stayed on the PGA Tour, I wouldn’t leave, and if he did, as he did, well, there was a great chance that I would leave.  

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“When he decided to leave, he began to look for a way for me to be part of that team. Then Mito (Pereira) got engaged, Joaco had already left, Carlos (Ortiz) had already left, Abraham (Ancer) had already left, so I was left alone and began to wonder what I was going to do.  

“When I played in the Presidents Cup, I thought I was going to stay on the PGA Tour and my mind was still there. Then, when I went to Japan and other tournaments, I realised that the mission of winning individually is not close to the mission of winning with your community, with your team, with your family, if you will. I feel that this is my mission.