Pro golfer Pat Perez is one of the first to admit that he quit the PGA Tour and joined the new LIV league because it is paying him more money.
Perez drove the point home by wearing a shirt that featured a print of $100 bills Tuesday night at the LIV Golf Invitational Series welcome dinner in Portland, Oregon, the New York Post reported.
But the 46-year-old pro also directly addressed the issue in comments that night.
“For me, it’s real simple. I’m 46. I’ve played 515 events. I’ve been on the road since 1998. I’ve been on the road longer than Matt Wolff has been alive. I have an almost 4-year-old. I missed my son’s birth last year,” Perez told the media.
“The bottom line is I’m tired of being on the road every day, and I don’t have to do it now. This opportunity [is] like winning the lottery for me,” he added.
Brooks Koepka also commented this week on his decision to jump from the PGA Tour to the Saudi-backed LIV league and, like Perez, said that having more time off the road was a chief benefit.
“I think having a little more break, a little more time at home to make sure I’m 100% before I go play in an event and don’t feel like I’m forced to play right away,” he said of the new schedule he would be playing with the LIV.
But many in the sports media continue to pepper the pros who jumped the PGA Tour ship with accusations that they are “sportwashing” Saudi Arabia’s terrible human rights record by helping the Arab country flog its new pro golf league.
Still, at least one high-profile member of the sports media is scolding those focusing so intently on the Saudi Human rights record even as they utterly ignore the billion-dollar deals many other leagues have with China, which has one of the worst human rights abuse records in the world.
Former ESPN personality Bob Ley recently took aim at detractors of the LIV for ignoring China and said, “It’s real easy to be pissed off and angry about LIV Golf and the Saudis. All I ask for is philosophical and ideological consistency.
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