Woods spoke to PGA Tour players about LIV: Reports

NEW YORK • The biggest name in golf, Tiger Woods, reportedly met with fellow PGA Tour players yesterday regarding the ongoing threat presented by the fledgling LIV Golf Series.

According to The Fire Pit Collective and ESPN, the 15-time Major champion was the headliner in a player meeting in Wilmington, where the BMW Championship begins tomorrow.

The Delaware event is the second of three tournaments in the FedExCup play-offs, which culminates in the season-ending Tour Championship.

An unnamed PGA Tour player told ESPN: "It's a meeting to get the top 20 players in the world on the same page on how we can continue to make the PGA Tour the best product in professional golf."

A PGA Tour Player Advisory Council meeting was also held yesterday, with commissioner Jay Monahan addressing the players separately, according to ESPN.

The Fire Pit Collective website wrote: "Supposedly everything is on the table, from Major championship boycotts to Monahan's future to a larger compromise (with LIV)."

The Saudi-funded LIV circuit, led by Australian great Greg Norman, has pulled numerous star players away from the PGA Tour with nine-figure dollar guarantees.

The LIV roster includes former Major champions Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Phil Mickelson, Spain's Sergio Garcia, and South Africans Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen.

There are also strong rumours that Australia's world No. 2 and British Open champion Cameron Smith, who on Monday pulled out of the BMW Championship because of injury, is about to leave the PGA Tour to join the LIV Series.

Players who have competed in the LIV events have been suspended by the PGA Tour, and last week a California court sided with the latter in its decision to ban LIV players from the FedExCup play-offs.

Woods has publicly backed the PGA Tour amid a flood of defections, saying ahead of last month's British Open: "I disagree with (players jumping to LIV).

"I think that what they've done is they've turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position.

"Some of these players may not ever get a chance to play in Major championships. That is a possibility. We don't know that for sure yet. It's up to all the Major championship bodies to make that determination.

"But that is a possibility that some players will never, ever get a chance to play in a Major championship, never get a chance to experience (the British Open), walk down the fairways at Augusta National. That, to me, I just don't understand it."

Woods declined an offer of more than US$700 million (S$965.8 million) to join LIV, Norman said in a Fox News interview earlier this month.

REUTERS