Tiger Woods has accused players who have signed for LIV Golf of turning their backs on the sport as he slammed the exhibition event.
And the American superstar compared the 54-hole format to the Seniors Tour.
“I just don't understand it,” said the 15-time Major winner. “What is the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt?”
Greg Norman claimed last month that Woods, now 46, had been offered a "mind-blowingly enormous” sum to join the Saudi-backed tour. “We're talking about high nine digits,” said the LIV boss.
But speaking before the 150th Open at St Andrews, golf’s first billionaire made clear his contempt for a breakaway league which offers $25m prize money for each event to the 48-man field with no cut. Last place still earns $125,000 while players have been paid massive signing-on bonuses.
The three-time Open champion said: “The players who have chosen to go to LIV and to play there, I disagree with it. I think that what they've done is they've turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position.
"Some players have never got a chance to even experience it. They've gone right from the amateur ranks right into that organisation and never really got a chance to play out here and what it feels like to play a TOUR schedule or to play in some big events.
“And who knows what's going to happen in the near future with world ranking points, the criteria for entering major championships. The governing body is going to have to figure that out. 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 this right here, walk down the fairways at Augusta National. That, to me, I just don't understand it.
“I understand what Jack and Arnold did because playing professional golf at a TOUR level versus a club pro is different, and I understand that transition and that move and the recognition that a touring pro versus a club pro is. But what these players are doing for guaranteed money, what is the incentive to practise? What is the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt?
"You're just getting paid a lot of money up front and playing a few events and playing 54 holes. They're playing blaring music and have all these atmospheres that are different.
“I can understand 54 holes is almost like a mandate when you get to the Senior Tour. The guys are little bit older and a little more banged up. But when you're at this young age and some of these kids -- they really are kids who have gone from amateur golf into that organisation -- 72-hole tests are part of it.
"We used to have 36-hole playoffs for major championships. That's how it used to be 18-hole U.S. Open playoffs. I just don't see how that move is positive in the long term for a lot of these players, especially if the LIV organisation doesn't get world-ranking points and the major championships change their criteria for entering the events.
"It would be sad to see some of these young kids never get a chance to experience it and experience what we've got a chance to experience and walk these hallowed grounds and play in these championships.”
Woods also joined Rory McIlroy in backing the R&A not inviting two-time champion Norman to the festivities in St Andrews this week.
“The R&A obviously have their opinions and their rulings and their decision,” said the world No.944. "Greg has done some things that I don't think is in the best interest of our game, and we're coming back to probably the most historic and traditional place in our sport. I believe it's the right thing.
“I know what the PGA TOUR stands for and what we have done and what the TOUR has given us, the ability to chase after our careers and to earn what we get and the trophies we have been able to play for and the history that has been a part of this game. I know Greg tried to do this back in the early '90s. It didn't work then, and he's trying to make it work now.
"I still don't see how that's in the best interests of the game. What the European Tour and what the PGA TOUR stands for and what they've done, and also all the professionals -- all the governing bodies of the game of golf and all the major championships, how they run it. I think they see it differently than what Greg sees it.”
