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Pat Perez has ripped into Tiger Woods for questioning the motivation of players who have swapped the PGA Tour for LIV Golf.
Perez, part of Dustin Johnson’s all-conquering 4 Aces team that won the inaugural LIV Golf Team Championship in Miami a fortnight ago, has blasted the 15-time major champion for remarks he made ahead of The 150th Open.
Speaking in St Andrews this summer, Woods took aim at the new Saudi-funded circuit, questioning everything from its 54-hole format to the ‘blaring’ music played its event.
“I just don’t see how this is positive in the long term,” added Woods. “It would be sad to see some of these young kids never get a chance to walk these hallowed grounds and play in these majors.”
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Speaking on the latest episode of the Son Of A Butch podcast, hosted by Claude Harmon, Perez hit back.
“That’s the stupidest s*** I have ever heard in my life,” he said.
“That’s one of the stupidest things I think he has said. The incentive is the fact that last place is $120,000, first place is four million. You cannot win four million on the PGA Tour.”
Perez, who made more than $8million in his first eight events on LIV to go with the $28.8million he made in 515 PGA Tour starts, also pointed out what he perceived to be hypocrisy in Woods’ remarks.
“Last time I checked, he signed a $40million deal right out of college, was flying on the Nike jet,” he said. “He found incentive. He could have shut it down right then.
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“He had a lot of guarantees. You know what, and he was the hottest thing. He’s made so much money off the course, he found incentive to go.
“But again, he only played how many tournaments. He didn’t go — I never saw him at John Deere, never saw him supporting all these events. He played in the majors, he played in the WGCs and that was it. He played Torrey. Never played Riv [Riviera].
“But he’s worth every dime. In fact, like I said, he’s two billion short of where he should be.”
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