Bubba Watson, like all players that made the move, received heavy criticism for taking money from the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund when he left the PGA Tour behind for the Greg Norman-led LIV Golf Series.
The Telegraph reported the two-time Masters champion signed a $50-million contract with the upstart circuit.
Well, Watson has told ESPN that LIV isn’t the first golf league to offer him guaranteed money.
“It makes me laugh because on the PGA Tour, I got paid behind closed doors to show up at tournaments, many tournaments,” he said. “And if Bubba Watson’s not the best, that means the best were getting paid better than me and more than me. And so it’s guaranteed money. I miss the cut, I still make money. I make the cut, I make extra money.”
On Wednesday, ESPN reported it received a memo from the PGA Tour claiming it “prohibits the payment of appearance money to players as an inducement to play in a particular tournament.”
Later in the memo, the ESPN states that the Tour says it’s aware “certain tournament sponsors may contract with a player to perform a sponsor-related activity during tournament week for which they receive nominal compensation,” and that action is “permissible under our guidelines.”
“I’d laugh at [criticism] because we all had some guaranteed money to show up at places,” Watson told ESPN. “Win, lose, quit, whatever it is, you still got the money. We’ve all been doing that. We’ve all been playing for guaranteed money. We don’t want to talk about it on tour, but we are getting it.”
During his time with the PGA Tour, Watson amassed nearly $50 million on the golf course throughout his career.
Watson has yet to play in a LIV event due to injury, although he expects to be back on the course in 2023. He made his first Saudi-backed league appearance at September’s Boston stop.
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