Nick Faldo rips LIV Golf apart: “Those players have gone soft”

One of Europe’s most successful players in history did not hold back when talking about LIV Golf.

Many American golf fans will see a LIV Golf event for the first time this year when the league tees it up on the Blue Monster at Doral in Miami this weekend.

And then, 12 LIV Golfers, including Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, and Bryson DeChambeau, will head to Augusta National next week to compete in The Masters Tournament. LIV players and PGA Tour pros only compete side-by-side in the four majors, despite the two sides continuing to hold talks about bridging the professional game back together.

Yet, Sir Nick Faldo says that LIV Golf should continue to operate separately.

“I think they should just go and do their own thing,” Faldo said to talkSPORT, an English radio outlet.

“LIV is LIV. Go and play the tour. You know, it’s caused the ruckus. The players have done incredibly well — they’ve found a way to double the bloomin’ prize money. They’re all making a fortune, both sides.”

LIV Golf is bankrolled by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which reportedly has over $700 billion in its reserves. The PIF prints money and has already invested north of $5 billion into LIV Golf, with much of those expenses being used on signing bonuses for former PGA Tour stars. Rahm, the 2023 Masters champion, allegedly received north of $450 million to sign with LIV Golf ahead of its 2024 season. Other stars accepted handsome paydays too.

On top of that, LIV offers $20 million purses for its 54-man fields, an astronomical total that the PGA Tour could not compete with at its onset. The PGA Tour has since struck a deal with the Strategic Sports Group (SSG), receiving a $1.5 billion investment, which has helped the tour keep up with LIV by elevating its purses. The introduction of Signature Events was also in response to LIV as the tour hoped to get all the best players together, competing side-by-side, in the biggest events outside the major championships.

“I sat there for television and I did not mention prize money that many times in 18 years,” Faldo added.

“We were told not to mention – just keep talking about [FedEx Cup] points. Then all of a sudden we’re saying $10 million, $20 million, $100 million – everything was about money.

“I think the average person would say, ‘Hang on a minute. You’re waltzing around the bloody field hitting the golf ball.’ It’s gotten preposterous, it’s gotten out of hand.”

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler made nearly $70 million in prize money during his historic 2024 season. That’s not a knock on Scheffler, that’s just what professional golf has turned into. To provide perspective on how astronomical that total is, Tiger Woods made $120 million in career PGA Tour earnings. That means Scheffler made more than half of what Woods made in a single season, and Woods won 69 more events on the PGA Tour than Scheffler.

The other wrinkle in this ordeal is that LIV is only 54 holes and does not employ a 36-hole cut. Everyone who tees it up in a LIV event receives a paycheck, unlike most PGA Tour events, which do not cut a check for those who fail to make the weekend.

“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. Sport is bloody tough. The fear of failure is just as powerful as the quest to win.

“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.”

Faldo, who will return to Augusta National next week for the annual Champions Dinner on Tuesday evening, then ripped into LIV’s financial health.

“It’s the one and only business model in the world where the money’s going out the window and very little’s coming in,” Faldo said.

“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. You’ve got guys who are into their careers getting 10 times what they would earn on [the PGA Tour], guaranteed. And then you’ve got these couple of guys getting paid an absolute fortune, and they haven’t moved a needle, really. So, hey, good luck to them. Go and do their own thing.”

Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.