Tiger Woods on vulgar anti-LIV script: I never saw that document until today
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more interesting on the PGA Tour, Tiger Woods enters the chat. The superstar golfer released a statement on Sunday related to leaked documents that surfaced over the weekend.
Friday, Twitter accounts @Flushingitgolf and @desertdufferllg shared “leaked documents” from a player meeting hosted by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan during the 2022 Travelers Championship. According to the report, Monahan and his team scripted out some of Woods’ talking points as the league started its battle against LIV Golf.
But on Sunday, Woods denied any knowledge of the talking points.
“In response to the talking points memo released this weekend, I have never seen this document until today and I did not attend the players meeting for which it was prepared at the 2022 Travelers,” Woods wrote on Twitter.
Per the released documents, Monahan prepared multiple talking points for Woods. One of the comments the Tour wanted Woods to make?
“First, do what I did: tell the Saudis to go f*** themselves,” the document reads.
The document also shows that the Tour wanted Woods to express strong support for Monahan, with another talking point reading, “Our captain — in this scenario — is working his ass off.”
It’s been a rough few weeks for the PGA Tour, especially with the merger with LIV Golf. This recent leak and Woods’ denying having knowledge of the document doesn’t really help matters.
We’ll see how the PGA Tour tries to manage the latest mess.
Players already frustrated with PGA Tour
We’ll go ahead and guess that Woods making a public announcement regarding his lack of knowledge about these “prepared talking points” won’t sit too well with some of the players on the PGA Tour. This is a group that was previously frustrated with the league’s lack of communication.
Prior to the start of the 2023 U.S. Open, the PGA Tour agreed to a merger with LIV Golf. Most members in both leagues learned about the agreement via social media.
Masters winner Jon Rahm said some of the players felt “betrayed.”
“It gets to a point where you wanna have faith in management. I wanna have faith that this is the best case for us, but that’s clearly not the consensus. I think the general feel is that a lot of people feel a bit of betrayal from management.”
Rahm also revealed how he — along with several other PGA Tour members — found out about the news.
“I was at home, taking care of the kids,” he said. “No, I was just having my normal morning, making coffee and breakfast and basically texts just started flowing in. I thought my phone was gonna catch on fire at one point. … I think, at one point, I told (my wife) Kelley, ‘I’m just gonna throw my phone in a drawer and not look at it for the next four hours because I can’t deal with it.’”
This latest development involving Woods certainly doesn’t help matters for the PGA Tour.