But McDowell, who said he considered a TV career before joining LIV, said it also could create opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was ready to jump ship and go get a real job,\u201d McDowell said before practicing yesterday in advance of this week\u2019s LIV Golf Virginia event. \u201cAnd then these guys came along and said, \u2018hey, we\u2019re going to do this tour. Do you want to come play?\u2019 I love playing. I love competing. I regret a few things I said in the beginning<\/a>, stuff like growing the game. I should have just said it for what it was: this is good for my bank account, and I\u2019m getting a runway to play the game of golf for as long as I possibly can.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think we could have ever imagined how deep this would go. The hatred. It\u2019s funny, but if we can shift the narrative away from Saudi Arabia and bring some U.S. money and get rid of that narrative … because that narrative is just nasty.\u201d<\/p>\n McDowell said he received death threats and his family was subjected to abuse in response to some of his comments about growing the game on behalf of Saudi Arabia back when the league launched four years ago.<\/p>\n He noted how the same kind of vitriol was not directed at other sports investments that the Saudi PIF backed such as horse racing, boxing, Formula One, boxing, soccer, snooker, \u201cyou name it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe we can get rid of that and focus on LIV as a viable golfing product,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n That is the challenge for CEO Scott O\u2019Neil, who was scheduled to have a meeting with players on Tuesday night after meeting with the media to share a confident vision for the future that was short on details<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cPotentially he\u2019s been given some leash now to be able to go and … I think we all knew that we were going to have to stand on our own two feet at some point to be able to make this into a legitimate business,\u201d McDowell said. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve kind of got the type of cash that we had in the beginning for a startup company, it was a little crazy and maybe not very real. It\u2019s kind of like we\u2019re turning 18 now. I\u2019m going to go into the real world. We got to fend for ourselves a little bit. We try to make this into legit business.\u201d<\/p>\n McDowell said he would not be opposed to downsizing, in the number of tournaments and prize money, in order to make it work.<\/p>\n LIV started with eight events with $25 million in prize money in 2022 and increased to 14 events the last three years. It went to $30 million per event this year ($20 million for the individual portion) and was scheduled for 14 tournaments this year before last week it was announced that next month\u2019s Louisiana event was being dropped<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the beginning, no doubt, there was a lot of excess,\u201d McDowell said. \u201cIt was maybe a little too flashy on some levels. The purse prizes are incredible. I could never imagine. I remember going to WGCs [World Golf Championship events] when I was in my late 20s, early 30s, thinking these are the most unbelievable things I\u2019ve ever heard of, playing for $7 million. It\u2019s insane. And then we\u2019re playing for $20 million out here. The complacency that can come with that is just embarrassing. You obviously adjust to your surroundings and get on with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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