He’s been one of LIV Golf’s strongest critics since its inauguration, but Sir Nick Faldo isn’t here to kick the failing league while it’s down. Though he will say ‘I told you so’…
Sir Nick Faldo leans back in his chair as he recalls his thoughts from the early days of LIV Golf.
“The oversell was just flat-out BS,” he smiles. “Greg Norman said, ‘We’re going to supercharge the excitement of golf!’ And I said, ‘It’s golf, for crying out loud.’ Golf is chess in the field.”
Now, with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund pulling the financial plug and leaving the league scrambling around for financial backing to survive for what would be a watered-down 2027 season, Faldo says Norman’s successor, Scott O’Neil, has his work cut out to save it.
“He’s guaranteeing opportunities for new sponsors,” Faldo tells TG in a video call to discuss the ever-changing landscape of golf at the highest level. “Well, he’s been in meetings for weeks and there’s been no word that somebody’s come up with 350 million dollars. Most companies will go, ‘Hang on, we’ve had to work really hard to earn that 350 million dollars – you think we’re just going to give it to something that’s failing?’ Good luck.”
Faldo isn’t pulling any punches – and his stance on why LIV Golf was destined to fail hasn’t changed since the league was in its infancy.
To save us trawling through four-year-old interviews with the six-time major champion, he’s happy to remind us.
“It doesn’t matter about the money because it’s the competition you want,” the 69-year-old says. “It’s got to have meaning. There’s no fear of failure at LIV. ‘Oh, I played badly this week and I still get 200 grand.’ And then there’s always next week. It’s all guaranteed. In sport, you’ve got to have the fear. The fans have got to see that you can fail, and that it means something. That’s the bottom line.”
Exhibit A, Faldo says, is Brooks Koepka’s return to the PGA Tour after four seasons and almost $50 million banked on LIV Golf. Along with Bryson DeChambeau, Koepka was one of two golfers to win a major while competing on LIV Golf. Since coming back to the PGA Tour, though, he’s missed five cuts in 15 starts, offset by just a single top-ten. Faldo, though, believes he’s happy.
“He comes back to the PGA Tour and goes, ‘Wow, I’ve got to dig it out the dirt.’ And he’s really enjoying digging it out there. That’s the pressure of failure. It’s amazing. It could be the world number one, 14 shots back, and they fist pump because they’ve just holed a putt to make the cut. That’s one of the toughest things to do in golf. You’re one outside the cutline with six to play and you’re desperate to make the weekend.
“That is real pressure on a Friday, because you’ve got to dig deep and work out how to shoot a couple under when you’re not playing great but you’re desperate to make it happen. You’re not going to go, ‘I couldn’t care less.’ Nobody says that. Not even the world number one. It’s important to make the cut.”
Faldo’s thought process pivots to Augusta in April.
“I think a lot happened at the Masters,” he explains. “Joaquin Niemann is one of their biggest stars, and didn’t get an invite. Tyrrell Hatton played several DP World Tour events, and he finishes highest. Of their superstars, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, one misses the cut and the other finishes 13 shots back. I think that really hit them.
“And then they go back to LIV, and they’re superstars again, and winning again. So it just really pointed out that there is a huge difference in just playing golf for the scorecard and trying to compete, and not for dollars.
“Sure, you wanted a boatload of cash, and you picked the right spot for that. But it’s going to be meaningless if it all collapses. They’ve wrecked their reputations. And now they’re all clambering to come back and compete again. Because that’s the whole challenge of sport – to push yourself a little further.”
It’s not just the lack of a competitive edge that irks Faldo, who won 40 titles as a professional between his first in 1977 and last in 1998, including three Green Jackets and three Claret Jugs.
“So many things were a mess,” he explains. “They all got excited about the shotgun start, but I have a friend who’s in TV production, and he says, ‘For one minute I’ve got 18 golfers on the tee hitting a ball, and then I’ve got 18 golfers walking, and then they’re all hitting again.’ This is a television nightmare. And they say, ‘Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.’ Well, yes, you did miss it, because you watched one shot and you missed 17 others.
“And the small field? Well, you’d be bored out your brains playing against the same 56 guys like that. So some of their ideas were questionable.”
LIV’s biggest crime, though? “I cannot believe they sat there and thought it would be great to make unknown golfers mega rich. What the heck? I don’t get it.”