Renegade golf league LIV has poached countless stars from the PGA Tour, but it failed to lure arguably the biggest name of all: Tiger Woods.
But apparently it wasn't for lack of trying.
LIV CEO and former PGA star Greg Norman has previously alluded to a substantial offer Woods received from the breakaway circuit. And on Monday night, during an appearance on FOX's Tucker Carlson Show, Norman detailed just how substantial that offer was.
According to Norman, Woods was promised between $700-800 million if he'd ditched the PGA Tour in favor of LIV.
“That number was out there before I became CEO. So that number has been out there, yes,” Norman said in the Fox News interview, which took place Sunday at Trump National in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the third LIV Golf Invitational was held.
“And, look, Tiger is a needle-mover and of course you have to look at the best of the best,” Norman said. “So they had originally approached Tiger before I became CEO. So, yes, that number was somewhere in that neighborhood.”
Woods apparently balked, and has since even criticized LIV as not being in the best best interests of the sport itself and the golfers who have joined.
Woods, 46, is a shell of his former self as a player. After snapping an 11-year drought in majors by winning the 2019 Masters, his career was jeopardized by injuries suffered in a rollover car crash in February 2021. Miraculously, he has come back, but he hasn't played very well.
Still, he remains a living legend and easily the sport's most recognizable figure.
The 15-time major-winner's career earnings total up to about $121 million, according to the PGA Tour -- a hefty sum to us mere mortals but only a fraction of what he was offered by LIV. Woods' endorsements with Nike and others undoubtedly push his career income far higher, so suffice to say he's not hurting for cash. But even still, the prospect of a three-quarters-of-a-billion-dollar payday in the twilight of his career must have been enticing.
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LIV Golf is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia's apparently deep-pocketed public investment fund. The breakaway league's emergence has sparked criticism of golfers who have accepted the blood-soaked Saudi monarchy's money given its well-documented human rights abuses.
Woods' longtime frenemy and fellow golf legend Phil Mickelson joined the league as arguably its most prominent and recognizable figure. Like Woods, he is on the downslope of his career at age 52, but his defection was seen as largely symbolic, bringing a degree of legitimacy to the new circuit. Mickelson was reportedly paid around $200 million after earning around $95 million on the PGA Tour throughout his illustrious career.
Mickelson and some of his fellow defectors have long complained about what they see as an inequitable compensation structure on the PGA Tour, citing the league's longstanding virtual monopoly on the sport. Mickelson and others have touted LIV as the beginning of a new era of "free agency" in golf, with better pay and lighter schedules for players. Woods and other critics have said that paying players so much money upfront removes the incentive to play for the winner's purse.
The PGA-LIV split has roiled the golf world, in some cases prompting stern rebukes from PGA loyalists who say the defectors have "turned their backs" on the league that helped launch their stardom. Meanwhile, Bryson DeChambeau, one of LIV's more notable poaches, recently detailed his apparent falling out with Woods, suggesting Tiger had remained loyal to the PGA to protect his "legacy."
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