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The rise of LIV Golf was responsible for some major drama between the golfers who defected to the upstart organization and those who remained loyal to the PGA Tour, although it does appear some of those strained relationships have started to heal in the wake of the bombshell merger that’s tentatively brought the two rivals together.
While plenty of guys affiliated with LIV Golf were more than happy to fire plenty of shots at (or throw a tee toward) people who swore their allegiance to the PGA Tour, they tended to shy away from getting into it with their fellow players (which you have to imagine stemmed from a mandate—unspoken or otherwise—to present a united front with the golfers they were technically competing against).
No one really seems to know what the future holds for LIV Golf as an organization, although the players who secured a massive bag courtesy of the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund have continued to participate in the events that have already been scheduled before the current season concludes in Jeddah in November.
That includes Brooks Koepka, who serves as the captain of a Smash GC team comprised of himself, his brother Chase, Jason Kokrak, and Matthew Wolff.
Wolff was one of the younger PGA Tour players who pounced at the opportunity to cash in when LIV Golf came calling, as the 24-year-old made the leap just three years after he made his pro debut (he had a single victory under his belt before doing so).
The manner in which LIV Golf contracts were reportedly instructed made plenty of people wonder if the golfers who signed them had any real incentive to actually compete once they secured their payday, and Wolff has become the poster boy for that particular argument thanks to what unfolded this year.
Wolff has ended up near the bottom of the leaderboard in every event he’s participated in over the course of 2023, and it seemed like Smash GC has some internal issues on its hands when his handle was scrubbed from its social media profiles after he opted to withdraw ahead of the final round of a LIV Golf event in Washington, D.C. after a dismal showing.
Based on what Koepka had to say to Sports Illustrated ahead of this week’s gathering in London, that is indeed the case, as he did not mince words while expressing his displeasure with how Wolff has handled himself:
“I mean, when you quit on your round, you give up and stuff like that, that’s not competing. I’m not a big fan of that.
You don’t work hard. It’s very tough. It’s very tough to have even like a team dynamic when you’ve got one guy that won’t work, one guy is not going to give any effort, he’s going to quit on the course, break clubs, gets down, bad body language, it’s very tough.
I’ve basically given up on him—a lot of talent, but I mean the talent’s wasted.”
Wow, Brooks. Tell us how you really feel.