DORAL, Fla. – Many made jokes and quips (this writer included) throughout LIV Golf’s inaugural season, but it was Pat Perez who got the last laugh.
Often the odd-score-out for his loaded 4Aces team that features Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Talor Gooch, the 46-year-old veteran couldn’t be happier after a final-round 2-under 70 at Trump National Doral – which tied Johnson and Reed for their team’s low score of the day – at the LIV Golf Team Championship.
“All the push-back, all the negative comments, everything we’ve gotten, at this point I really don’t care. I mean, I don’t care. I’m paid. I don’t give a damn,” Perez said with a laugh in the media scrum after the 4Aces won the event to take home the top prize of $16 million. “My team played unbelievable this year. I feel like I’m really part of something that I’ve never been part of, other than me and my caddie, we’ve just been just us our whole life. To have these guys and their caddies and families and coaches and everybody, it’s just one big family now. I just couldn’t be any happier. It’s unbelievable.”
Johnson, the 4Aces captain, said Perez should have felt pressure on the final day, and he did. He always does.
“I don’t want to let the team down. I want to play well every day, and today I finally was able to show up,” said Perez. “I birdied two of my last three holes coming in and had a great up-and-down on the last hole to get up-and-down. You know, it was an unbelievable feeling to hole that last six-footer kind of down the hill and it go in.”
“I thought we had a one-shot lead there, and P-Reed birdied his last hole and then Cap came down and had to make that four-footer. It was a great atmosphere,” he continued. “You’ve got Cap and Cam going down the last hole, you can’t script it any better. Two best players, just unbelievable.”
In six starts on the upstart circuit led by Greg Norman and backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Perez struggled with finishes of T29-T31-T15-T31-40-46 in the 48-player, no cut events. Those results saw Perez individually earn $961,000, one of 21 players who teed it up for LIV to fail to break $1 million in individual earnings. Due to his 4Aces winning four regular-season events as well as the team title, Perez cleared $7,062,500 in team prize money to walk away with $8,023,500 total for the year.
The results weren’t there throughout the year, but Perez stepped up when every shot counted and his team needed him most. And that’s nothing to laugh at.
