While speaking with talkSport, six-time major champion Nick Faldo took a swipe at LIV Golf and its players while also saying the PGA Tour should not make a deal with LIV.
“Personally, I think they should just go and do their own thing,” Faldo said.
Faldo added that not having a cut has taken away from the LIV players’ competitive desire.
“I saw it many a time,” Faldo said. “The guys would fist pump—I made the cut, I still have a chance to win.
“That's more important than, ‘Oh, thanks very much. I’ll waltz around for 54 holes and I've got a guaranteed check.’ That's not sport. It's not good for you, that sort of thing.”
LIV events have 54 holes and no cut, which Faldo believes has led to the players losing an edge.
“Sport is bloody tough. The fear of failure is just as powerful as the quest to win," he said. “And I think when you're on a fail-free tour, you can't fail. It makes you go soft. I think some of those players have gone soft.”
Additionally, the 67-year-old ripped the LIV business model, which he doesn’t believe to be profitable.
“No company—you couldn't go to your bank manager and say, ‘This is my business model.’ He’d say, ‘Excuse me? We've only got this coming in and that going out?’”
“I say the players are the luckiest things in the world, because you've got guys we’ve hardly heard of, who’ve never won, playing in $20 million tournaments.”
Faldo has criticized the Saudi-backed league before; in 2023 while hosting the British Masters he took aim at the team format and said he didn’t recognize half the players in their fields. He has also said that LIV golfers should be banned from the Ryder Cup.
This week, LIV is playing at Trump National Doral as a number of players gear up for the first major of the season next week at Augusta National.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Nick Faldo Rips LIV Golf: ‘Some of Those Players Have Gone Soft’.
