Masters golf: Fred Couples says LIV tour is not as good as PGA
The old guard isn’t shy about sharing their thoughts about the LIV tour. The 1992 Masters champion, Freddie Couples, hasn’t held back.
Masters’ champions receive lifetime exemptions. They can take an Uber down Magnolia Lane and play the tournament until their last breath and swing. Older blokes like Freddie Couples rock up to Augusta National as if they’re having a hit in a Friday arvo chook run. They play without pressure and speak without filters.
“It’s a great product and it’s a great show – my ass,’’ Couples says of LIV Golf. “Tell me the next guy who will say, “I’m going for free, boys! I love this tour and I don’t like the PGA Tour anymore.’ No one is going to say that. So what does that tell me? It tells me it’s about the money, which is fine. But don’t sit there and go on and say they’re changing the game. For 50 years, golf has been changed. Arnold Palmer changed it. Jack Nicklaus changed it. Tiger Woods changed it. The LIV tour ain’t changin’ a thing.”
The 64-year-old Couples won the 1992 Masters when his ball defied all gravity, reasoning, logic, understanding and Craig Parry by staying dry on the 12th hole when everything, the sun and the moon and the tides and the stars and the galaxies and tradition suggested it should have rolled down the bank and disappeared into Rae’s Creek. Couples was kissed on the aforementioned ass by a fairy there.
His swing remains smoother than a baby’s backside. He made the cut last year. When he’s 64? He played a practice round this week with Tiger Woods, who’s staunchly anti-LIV and pro PGA Tour despite breakaway boss Greg Norman reportedly offering him a billion dollars to go to the dark side, where they play three-round events that allow players to drive carts and have a shotgun start: beginning simultaneously on separate holes instead of queuing for the first and tenth tees.
“Maybe I’ll go to one and see what it’s really, really like,” Couples says. “I know how great they are as players. I get it all. I get the 54 holes and you drive a cart to your tee and shotgun. That’s easy to pick on. Sometimes I’ve picked on comments that people have made, and I’ve picked on comments when they talk about the PGA Tour, which I have now 44 years invested in. I don’t want anyone picking on a tour that I think is very good. Now, everything can get better, but let me tell you, if the LIV tour is better for golf, I’m missing something there.”
LIV loyalist Sergio Garcia has stirred the pot by posting on social media, “We’re coming for that green jacket.” Couples takes a deepish breath before the Champions Dinner and says: “I’m not here to bash them anymore. I’m going to see them all tonight. Do I like coming to this tournament? I love it. Do I like five days before it seeing the people standing there saying we’re coming after the green jacket? I mean, when I was 35 I was coming after the green jacket, too. I don’t think you need to tell people what you’re doing. I mean, everyone at this tournament – you don’t think Ludvig Aberg wants to win the green jacket, or Tyrell Hatton? I find it funny. But please don’t tell me the LIV tour is as good as the PGA tour. I don’t want to hear it.”
LIV Golf and the PGA tour mooted a merger last year. Has it happened? Pardon the language, mum, but Freddie Couples’ ass has it happened. LIV Adelaide will be held at The Grange from April 26-28.
“Does the US tour remain the US tour and US-centric?” says ex-British Open champion and incoming chair of the PGA of Australia, Ian Baker-Finch, at Augusta. “Does LIV remain LIV with their funding? Does the European Tour, the DP World Tour, keep doing what they’re doing? Is there room for all three? I think the biggest thing is if they do somehow come together, are the LIV players going to be allowed back on the PGA Tour? That would be one of the difficulties. That’s what they have to figure out.”
Baker-Finch adds: “I very much doubt whether LIV, as it is, survives long-term. I just don’t see shotgun starts, 54 holes – and don’t give me, ‘Grow the game.’ It’s not what they’re doing. It’s sustainable from a money perspective.
It’s not going to die – LIV, die – but I just can’t see, long-term, 54 holes and shotgun starts being formula-one sustainable.”
Golf Australia is yet to announce whether the experiment of joint men’s and women’s Australian Opens will continue this year. Baker-Finch wants it to return to the old formula of separate tournaments.
“They’re grappling with, do they decouple the event?” he says. “Have two Australian Opens again? The ladies in February and the men’s in November or December? I think Golf Australia is talking to all the players, trying to get the players’ perspective on what they think is best. My personal opinion is that it would be better for both events if they were separated. Different times of year. All the top ladies will come because they’re already coming to the southern hemisphere. I think that would be better for them. I think the men’s would shine if it was the men’s Australian Open again. Like we all grew up watching in the old days.”
He adds: “Adam Scott and all the Aussie players will agree. They’ll be 100 per cent on my side. There’s not one who will say, ‘No, I like it the way it was the last couple of years.’”
Couples played the opening round with a bright yellow ball you may otherwise find in a bucket at a driving range. Attempting to break Freddie Couples’ record for the oldest player to make the cut, Freddie Couples had a tough day at the office, carding an eight-over-par 80 to sit towards the rear of the 89-man field.
He won’t have been too cockahoop about the name atop the leaderboard, Bryson DeChambeau, one of the LIV players giving traditionalism a kick up the backside. He played powerfully and intelligently. The smart ass.
More Coverage
Tiger Woods undergoes more back surgery, eyes pain-free return
Tiger Woods has released a statement confirming his most recent back surgery in the hope he can make a return to competitive golf as soon as possible.
World No.1 shoots back to the top after rocky two months on tour
After a couple of rocky months on the course, World No.1 Nelly Korda is back to her best and credits a change of scenery for her turnaround.