December 25, 2024

Pat Perez blasts Tiger Woods’ criticisms on players joining LIV Golf: ‘Stupidest s— I have ever heard’

Perez #Perez

LIV Golf competitor Pat Perez fired back at Tiger Woods over critical remarks the legendary PGA Tour player made about the Saudi-backed rival series in July.

Ahead of The Open Championship in July, Woods took issue with players leaving the PGA Tour with the possibility of never playing in a major championship and taking the money LIV offered.

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Tiger Woods walks to the fourth tee during the PGA Championship at Southern Hills Country Club on May 21, 2022, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

“But what these players are doing for guaranteed money, what is the incentive to practice?” Woods said at the time. “What is the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt? You’re just getting paid a lot of money up front and playing a few events and playing 54 holes.”

Perez, who was on the 4Aces LIV Golf squad that took home a share of the $16 million for winning the team tournament at Trump Doral last month, appeared on the “Son of a Butch” podcast and in a recent episode dismissed Woods’ remarks.

“That’s the stupidest s— I have ever heard of in my life,” he said. “That’s one of the stupidest things I think he has said. The incentive is the fact that last place is 120,000, first place is four million. You cannot win four million on the PGA Tour. Now, next year you might; they finally got the perks. But last time I checked, he signed a $40 million deal right out of college, was flying on the Nike jet. He found incentive. He could have shut it down right then.”

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Pat Perez celebrates after the 4 Aces GC team captained by Dustin Johnson won the LIV Golf Team Championship at Trump National Doral Golf Club, Oct. 30, 2022, in Florida. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Claude Harmon III, the host of the podcast and Perez’s swing coach, said Woods had an “incentive” to play in the tournaments regardless of the money he was going to make anyway.

Perez added: “”He had a lot of guarantees. You know what, and he was the hottest thing. He’s made so much money off the course, he found incentive to go. But again, he only played how many tournaments. He didn’t go – I never saw him at John Deere, never saw him supporting all these events. He played in the majors, he played in the WGCs and that was it. He played Torrey. Never played Riv [Riviera]. But he’s worth every dime. In fact, like I said, he’s two billion short of where he should be, I think.”

Perez, 46, played in the PGA Tour for a while before jumping to LIV Golf. He had three PGA Tour victories and had his best finish at a major in the 2005 PGA Championship when he tied for sixth.

Pat Perez celebrates after winning the team championship stroke-play round of the LIV Golf Invitational – Miami on Oct. 30, 2022, in Florida. (Eric Espada/Getty Images)

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His 4Aces team included Dustin Johnson, Talor Gooch and Patrick Reed. Johnson took home 14% of the $255 million in purses in 2022.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ryan Gaydos is the sports editor for Fox News Digital.

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