Former golf broadcaster Nick Faldo rips LIV: ‘Some of those players have gone soft’

So far, LIV Golf hasn’t proven to be much of a threat to the PGA Tour from a viewership perspective, struggling massively to appeal to golf fans. On Thursday, former CBS golf broadcaster Nick Faldo shared his perspective as to why this may be the case.

Despite having stars like Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, and Jon Rahm, LIV Golf has laughably underperformed from a ratings perspective compared to the PGA Tour. Last month, LIV was notably outdrawn 100-1 by the PGA Tour, with the final round broadcast of their Singapore event attracting just 34,000 viewers.

LIV has spent significant money pillaging the talent on the PGA Tour. Despite this, the tour has yet to profit from the top-tier talents in terms of ratings or interest.

This led to Faldo publically poking fun at the LIV business model in a recent conversation with Brian T. Smith of Talksport.com.

“It’s the one and only business model in the world where the money’s going out the window and very little’s coming in,” said Faldo. “No company, you couldn’t go to your bank manager and say, ‘This is my business model.’ He’d say, ‘Excuse me? We’ve only got this coming in and that going out?’ I say the players are the luckiest things in the world, because you’ve got guys we’ve hardly heard of, who’ve never won, playing in $20 million tournaments.

“You’ve got guys who are into their careers getting 10 times what they would earn on tour, guaranteed. And then you’ve got these couple of guys getting paid an absolute fortune, and they haven’t moved a needle, really. So, hey, good luck to them. Go and do their own thing.”

Faldo believes that players on the Saudi-backed tour have become “soft” due to the built-in guaranteed money that the vast majority of players accepted upon joining the tour.

“Sport is bloody tough,” he said. “The fear of failure is just as powerful as the quest to win. And I think when you’re on a fail-free tour, you can’t fail. It makes you go soft. I think some of those players have gone soft.”

Faldo, who spent 18 years broadcasting the PGA Tour, first for ABC and later for CBS, also shared how he believes that the recurring mentions of prize money during LIV broadcasts may be a factor in turning away fans.

“I sat there for television and I did not mention prize money that many times in 18 years,” Faldo added. We were told not to mention – just keep talking about points. Then all of a sudden, we’re saying $10 million, $20 million, $100 million… Everything was about money. I think the average person would say, ‘Hang on a minute. You’re waltzing around the bloody field hitting the golf ball, and it’s gotten preposterous, it’s gotten out of hand.'”