Defectors to LIV Golf Invitational Series Have Started Teeing Off on PGA Tour

After becoming the latest high-profile player to defect from the PGA Tour to the LIV Golf Invitational Series, Patrick Reed did not pull his punches during his first press conference on behalf of his new league.

Reed, a nine-time winner on the PGA Tour, expressed his frustration about his former league not listening to its players and then went on to extoll the virtues of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series. “We have a smaller schedule,” Reed said. “We actually have an off-season where not only can we get healthy, work on our bodies, but we’re basically allowing ourselves throughout the year to, you know, try to peak at the right times is when you’re playing rather than feeling like you have to play every single week. And on top of it, just the quality of life for us as players now, you know, having less events, being able to spend more time at home with the family, if you have kids, being able to spend time with your children, and not sitting there and having to play three, four weeks in a row, then have a week off, and during that week off you’re preparing to get ready for the next week.”

Just imagine, having to do your job for three or even four weeks in a row and then still trying to find the time to spend time with your children as well as get healthy? Tough to do, right? It’s amazing, but there are actually millions of Americans who do exactly those same things — working, raising kids, keeping in shape — that find time to play golf too…and they don’t get paid millions of dollars to do so. Crazy, but true.

Reed, who has officially resigned from the PGA Tour unlike fellow defectors Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau, went on to complain about being “mentally tired” and the “grind” of playing on the tour every week leading to players getting injured in their 30s. At the ancient age of 31, Reed will now be able to take better care of himself mentally and physically while getting paid millions to participate in sporting events that are financed by a group that has been accused of torture, murder, kidnapping and the mistreatment of women and other groups.

As the old saying goes, you can’t put a price on health. Well, maybe Reed and the other PGA defectors, who will be competing in the LIV series in the United States for the first time next week, actually can.