Tiger Woods admits more big names could be coaxed towards the LIV tour by lucrative incentives. Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay have all been linked with a switch to the Saudi Arabian-backed LIV circuit in recent days. Potential deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been mooted, with LIV seemingly keen to increase its footprint.
The coaxing of Rahm would be especially notable given his status as the Masters champion. As these stories persist, the PGA and DP World Tours are trying to formalise a framework agreement with Saudi’s Public Investment Fund. The deadline for that deal to be completed is the end of December. Woods, a 15-time major champion, now sits on the PGA Tour’s policy board.
Asked if high-profile moves to LIV at this juncture would surprise him, Woods said: “Hypothetically, would it surprise me, yes, but there’s so many different things that have happened in the last, you said 48 hours but also in the last few weeks. Things have changed and will continue to change. Our deadline’s coming up here soon, so there’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of different things are happening very quickly.
“There’s so many different things that have happened so fast. That’s one of the things that all of us as player-directors have been working on. Everything is now at a time crunch. It’s 24 hours a day just trying to figure it out.”
Woods was speaking after an encouraging second round of 70 at the Hero World Challenge. The five shot improvement on his day one score comes in the 47-year-old’s first tournament start since the Masters. “I was more committed out there today,” Woods said. “I made a few mistakes but overall the round was better, for sure. The start was better, the middle part of the round was better. I missed a couple putts towards the end I thought would have kept the round going and unfortunately it kind of stalled a little bit. Certainly better than it was yesterday.
“I haven’t played in months. Things are not as sharp as they normally would be. There’s some good in there and I have just got to make sure that the good is more consistent than it has been. I can play at home, I can walk, walk beaches, do all those things at home but it’s different when you’re at game speed.”
Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth share the halfway lead at nine under par.
