Viktor Hovland shuts down rumors that he’s leaving for LIV Golf, but rips PGA Tour in the process
Hovland won’t be following Jon Rahm to LIV Golf, but he gets why Rahm left for the Saudi Arabian-backed league
Viktor Hovland isn’t going to join LIV Golf.
Hovland, the reigning FedExCup champion and current No. 4-ranked golfer, shut down rumors Monday that he was going to make the jump to the Saudi Arabian-backed league — which is something Jon Rahm did earlier this month.
Rahm, who is No. 3 in the world, reportedly signed a deal worth more than $550 million to leave the Tour for LIV Golf.
Though he isn’t going to follow in Rahm’s footsteps, Hovland gets why Rahm did what he did.
“It would be a bit too silly to criticize the players for leaving. After all, you only hear one angle in the media, and there are quite a few different parts happening at the same time here,” Hovland said on the “Fore!” podcast in Norwegian, via Golfweek. “I totally understand why he left. That’s a lot, a lot of money.”
Hovland has been just the latest golfer subject to LIV Golf rumors this winter, and it’s easy to understand why. The 26-year-old is fresh off his five-shot win at the Tour Championship, which won him the FedExCup Playoffs. He’s won six times on the PGA Tour, including three times last season, and he finished inside the top-20 at all four major championships.
Hovland’s win at the Tour Championship earned him an $18 million check, which bumped his career earnings up to about $44.6 million.
He’d be a great addition for LIV Golf, but Hovland just isn’t interested.
“I don’t think their product is that great. I’m not such a fan of, for example, playing without a cut,” Hovland said. “You need the competition with 150 players and a cut. If you don’t play well enough, you’re out. There is something about it that makes your game a little sharper. If I had gone to LIV, I don’t think I would have become a better golfer. And then it is, in a way, end of discussion.”
Viktor Hovland slams PGA Tour leadership
Though he’s not leaving, that doesn’t mean that Hovland is happy with how the PGA Tour is being run.
Hovland ripped Tour leadership Monday for how they’ve handled this saga with LIV Golf in recent years.
“The management has not done a good job,” he said. “They almost see the players as labor, and not as part of the members. After all, we are the PGA Tour. Without the players, there is nothing. When you then get to see what happens behind closed doors, how the management actually makes decisions, which are not in the players’ best interest, but best for themselves and what they think is best … They are not professional golfers after all. They are businessmen who say that, ‘No, it should look like this and that.’ There is a great deal of arrogance behind it all.”
Hovland is far from the only golfer to slam the Tour’s decision-making in recent months. The Tour is facing a Dec. 31 deadline to finalize a deal on its partnership with LIV Golf and the DP World Tour — something that shocked the golf world when it was first announced in June. That deal was done in almost total secrecy, even from the top players in the sport, and it’s still not done.
Whether that happens between now and the end of the year — and what it would actually look like — remains to be seen.
Regardless of how that shakes out, Hovland is sticking with the Tour. He’s already committed to play in The Sentry in Maui in January to begin the Tour’s new season, and he’ll play in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the WM Phoenix Open and the Genesis Invitational.
While he was openly criticizing the Tour, he made sure to add a caveat.
“Just to be clear, I’m not complaining about the position I’m in, and I’m very grateful for everything,” he said.
