PGA, LIV golfers react to merger of rival leagues: ‘Nothing like finding out through Twitter’

It was nearly a 12 months in the past to the day that Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf teed off for the primary time because the PGA Tour’s latest rival, flush with defectors from golf’s high circuit.

Morals had been questioned. Lawsuits had been filed. Golfers doubled down on their affiliations.

A merger, it appeared, wasn’t within the playing cards. But on Tuesday, professionals from each excursions had been caught off guard by information that their worlds would collide.

When a information outlet broke the embargoed announcement that the PGA Tour, European tour and LIV Golf had been merging industrial curiosity earlier than PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan might ship a memo to gamers, some realized about it on social media.

“Nothing like finding out through Twitter that we’re merging with a tour that we said we’d never do that with,” Mackenzie Hughes tweeted.

“And everyone thought yesterday was the longest day in golf,” tweeted Collin Morikawa, who additionally mentioned he discovered concerning the merger on Twitter.

Justin Thomas was in the course of a observe session when he mentioned his cellphone lit up with notifications.

Tyrell Hatton merely tweeted an NFL blindside hit. Sepp Straka felt that was an correct depiction.

Not getting in on the social media response was Rory McIlroy, who spent the previous 12 months vehemently defending the PGA Tour towards LIV earlier than going quiet on the subject in current weeks.

Phil Mickelson, among the many loudest LIV defectors, known as Tuesday “an awesome day.”

It wasn’t instantly clear how the unification would work going ahead. Players who switched to LIV inked profitable signing bonuses – in Mickelson’s case, a reported $200 million – but now may need a strategy to rejoin gamers who opted to not take cash from a league that some have known as a Saudi Arabia “sportswashing” initiative.

J.J. Spaun retweeted ESPN sportscaster Scott Van Pelt’s tackle that difficulty.

“So, you preach loyalty to a tour and convince guys not to take 8 and 9 figure deals based, in part, on that loyalty and, in part, on the source of the money. Then those guys find out on Twitter YOU took the very same money?” Van Pelt tweeted.

PGA Tour member Byeong Hun An joked that Hideki Matsuyama “could have bought spirit airlines” if he had signed with LIV (Matsuyama was seen boarding a Spirit Airlines flight after the Memorial). He additionally mentioned his guess is “liv teams were struggling to get sponsors and pga tour couldn’t turn down the money.”

“Win-win for both tours but it’s a big lose for (players) who defended the tour for last two years,” he tweeted.

Dylan Wu, a 26-year-old second-year participant on the PGA Tour, known as the merger “hypocrisy.”

“Tell me why Jay Monahan basically got a promotion to CEO of all golf in the world by going back on everything he said the past 2 years,” Wu tweeted, including: “I guess money always wins.”

Monahan advised The Associated Press he was conscious the merger could be criticized.

“They were going down their path, we were going down ours, and after a lot of introspection you realize all this tension in the game is not a good thing,” he mentioned in a cellphone interview with the AP.

PGA Tour gamers on the Canadian Open had been to get a bit extra perception Tuesday from Monahan, who was headed to Toronto to debate the merger with these on the Canadian Open (among the tour’s high golfers aren’t on the match).

Michael Kim thinks it’ll be an fascinating assembly.

“Alright guys. How much to live stream the player meeting at 4 today??? (I’m KIDDING)…. But seriously….,” Kim tweeted.