Here’s a look at Perez, who turned 48 on March 1, 2024, through the years.
Arizona State University product Pat Perez has never been shy about speaking his mind.
The Phoenix native famously called Phil Mickelson’s apology about Saudi Arabia “such horseshit,” then piled the fellow Sun Devil. “In the fact that he thought he was trying to make it better for the players. He was in it for one reason. If anybody thinks he wasn’t in it for his own pocket, and his pocket only, is (blanking) high. They are (blanking) crazy.”
Perez, a winner of three PGA Tour titles who made over $28 million in career Tour earnings, added that he didn’t think a Saudi league would ever come together — and then he signed with the league in 2022.
“All the push-back, all the negative comments, everything we’ve gotten, at this point I really don’t care. I mean, I don’t care. I’m paid. I don’t give a damn,” Perez said with a laugh in the media scrum after the 4Aces won the event to take home the top prize of $16 million at LIV Golf’s 2022 Team Championship in Miami.
The divorce was filed in late November of 2023 in an Arizona court.
After nine years of marriage the union between LIV Golf’s Pat Perez and Ashley Perez is coming to an end.
Ashley filed a petition for dissolution of marriage with minor children in Arizona’s Maricopa County on November 29, 2023, a month after the LIV Golf Team Championship in Miami. The affidavit of service, which proves to the judge the respondent was properly notified, was filed on Dec. 4, 2023. A resolution management conference will take place Feb. 26, 2024. The pair have been together since 2014 and have two children.
Perez has made $14,049,942 since he joined LIV Golf in 2022, largely thanks to the performance of his 4Aces GC team. LIV Golf opens its 2024 season next month in Mexico, Feb. 2-4.
Player opinions on the Saudi-backed league seem to have changed after they signed multi-million dollar deals.
It seems like it wasn’t so long ago that some of the world’s top golfers were denouncing the possibility of moving to a Saudi-backed circuit, especially after the comments made by Phil Mickelson that stirred controversy outside of the sports world.
But in fact, many of these conversations came as far back as 2022 (remember that year?) and while they haven’t aged well, they have certainly made for some interesting reading.
With a late 2023 defection of Jon Rahm from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf, this seemed like a good time to play everyone’s favorite social media game, “How it started vs. how it’s going.”
Some have changed drastically on their stance. Others have remained consistent. Here’s a look at a few:
Poor reporting and bad management led to a wild few days of stories that could have been avoided.
After winning LIV Golf’s team championship in Miami last fall, Pat Perez said, “I’m paid. I don’t give a damn” in the victory press conference.
Ahead of the upstart circuit’s first event of the season in Mexico at Mayakoba, a former PGA Tour venue, Perez explained his joy at being there as, “I love it because we’re here and the Tour is not. End quote.”
The Australian Associated Press reported on Monday that Johnson had said the following about Monahan: “We don’t give a damn how he feels. We know how he feels about us, so it’s mutual.”
“DJ said nothing, it was all me,” Perez said to SI. “I said we don’t care what Jay thinks cause we know how he feels about us and when I say WE, I mean me. I can’t speak for the whole group.”
The interaction was removed from the press conference transcript by LIV Golf, which aided in the flurry of bad reports over the last two days.
Dustin didn’t say it, Pat did. AAP reported it incorrectly.
“We are trying to avoid that kind of hostility in our press conferences,” MacNeille told SI. “The question created an eruption of chatter and everyone said ‘no comment’ but one player (Perez) and it was indiscernible as it was kind of a chaotic scene. So we decided to remove it from the transcript.”
The Greg Norman-led and Saudi Arabia-backed league is back in action this week with LIV Golf Singapore at Sentosa Golf Club.
LIV distributed $255 million in prize money with 52 players earning more than $1 million.
Pat Perez is unapologetic for joining LIV Golf and cashing in after more than two decades on the PGA Tour. Though no one feels sorry for a man who won nearly $29 million in prize money in 21 years on the tour, Perez wanted what everyone wants: Less work; more money.
He found it with LIV.
“I just couldn’t be happier,” he said Sunday at the conclusion of LIV’s inaugural season. “It’s unbelievable.”
LIV, financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, distributed $255 million in prize money in 2022, including $30 million in bonuses. In all, 52 golfers earned more than $1 million.
Here are the top 10 on LIV’s money list for its inaugural year and how this year compares to their time on the PGA Tour.
Perez cleared $7,062,500 in team prize money to walk away with $8,023,500 total after his first year with LIV.
DORAL, Fla. – Many made jokes and quips (this writer included) throughout LIV Golf’s inaugural season, but it was Pat Perez who got the last laugh.
Often the odd-score-out for his loaded 4Aces team that features Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Talor Gooch, the 46-year-old veteran couldn’t be happier after a final-round 2-under 70 at Trump National Doral – which tied Johnson and Reed for their team’s low score of the day – at the LIV Golf Team Championship.
“All the push-back, all the negative comments, everything we’ve gotten, at this point I really don’t care. I mean, I don’t care. I’m paid. I don’t give a damn,” Perez said with a laugh in the media scrum after the 4Aces won the event to take home the top prize of $16 million. “My team played unbelievable this year. I feel like I’m really part of something that I’ve never been part of, other than me and my caddie, we’ve just been just us our whole life. To have these guys and their caddies and families and coaches and everybody, it’s just one big family now. I just couldn’t be any happier. It’s unbelievable.”
Johnson, the 4Aces captain, said Perez should have felt pressure on the final day, and he did. He always does.
“I don’t want to let the team down. I want to play well every day, and today I finally was able to show up,” said Perez. “I birdied two of my last three holes coming in and had a great up-and-down on the last hole to get up-and-down. You know, it was an unbelievable feeling to hole that last six-footer kind of down the hill and it go in.”
“I thought we had a one-shot lead there, and P-Reed birdied his last hole and then Cap came down and had to make that four-footer. It was a great atmosphere,” he continued. “You’ve got Cap and Cam going down the last hole, you can’t script it any better. Two best players, just unbelievable.”
In six starts on the upstart circuit led by Greg Norman and backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Perez struggled with finishes of T29-T31-T15-T31-40-46 in the 48-player, no cut events. Those results saw Perez individually earn $961,000, one of 21 players who teed it up for LIV to fail to break $1 million in individual earnings. Due to his 4Aces winning four regular-season events as well as the team title, Perez cleared $7,062,500 in team prize money to walk away with $8,023,500 total for the year.
The results weren’t there throughout the year, but Perez stepped up when every shot counted and his team needed him most. And that’s nothing to laugh at.
The plane features both a lounge area and a fully-stocked bar.
LIV Golf is all about the money.
Players have received signing bonuses in the hundred of millions of dollars. Bryson DeChambeau confirmed last week that his deal with the Saudi-backed, Greg Norman-led breakaway league is north of $125 million.
The winners of their events go home with $4 million. The players who finish last still earn more than $100,000.
And it seems they aren’t closing their checkbooks anytime soon.
Video posted on social media showing the inside of a plane LIV provided to its players is absolutely insane. A fully-stocked bar, a lounge area, and enough room to get in a game of flag football.
With “We Are the Champions” blasting over the speakers, Pat Perez soaks in the lavish lifestyle he and fellow ex-PGA Tour players are living.
Those who complained about the PGA Tour no longer have the luxury of picking their schedule.
“Free agency is finally coming to golf,” Greg Norman proclaimed at the debut of LIV Golf last month.
“I feel so happy for the fact that we’ve brought free agency to the game of golf,” he said on another occasion.
To hear Pat Perez, one of the LIV signees, tell it, he’s been rescued from being an indentured servant with the PGA Tour – albeit one who earned more than $28 million during his career.
“I missed my son’s birth last year. August 18, I get a call my wife’s going into labor. I’m in Jersey. I’m getting ready to start the FedEx playoffs. I’m 116 on the list. I can’t leave. I can’t miss it. I can’t get back. I can’t get there and back without spending 150 grand on a private flight. I’m not doing that. So I had to suck on it and I had to miss my son’s birth,” Perez said. “And, you know, fortunately, I made the cut and I moved up my status by playing all right, but it still sucked.”
Only thing is Perez didn’t actually have to miss the birth of his son. He chose to play the Northern Trust. He already had wrapped up his Tour card for the next season by finishing in the top 125. If he wanted to qualify for the BMW Championship the following week (top 70) or Tour Championship (top 30), he would have needed to continue on because he hadn’t played well enough that season to guarantee his spot. Tour veteran Billy Horschel took exception to what Perez had to say.
“PGA Tour says 15 events minimum, all you have to do is play 15 events and you keep your card in those 15 events then that’s fine. If you want to play better or you want to play more so you get a chance to win the FedExCup, so be it. So be it. No one has made you play that first Playoff event to go miss family obligations. No one has,” Horschel said. “Yes, we are independent contractors; we do sign a contract with the PGA Tour to meet certain requirements of the PGA Tour. But we have the opportunity to make our schedule.”
Horschel noted that by the time he played this week at the Genesis Scottish Open and the British Open next week, he will have been gone for five consecutive weeks from his family.
“I made that decision to not see my wife and kids for five weeks. Am I crying about it? No,” he said. “I understand. I’m living my dream trying to play golf professionally and support my family financially.”
Here’s the thing: Perez was an independent contractor; now he’s an employee. This is not an employer you want to piss off. He’s signed a contract to play in all eight LIV Golf events. Next year, that number has been announced to increase to 14. Has Norman really achieved this 30-plus-year-old dream of his?
The PGA Tour and the Europe-based DP World Tour both declined requests from members for releases to compete in LIV events and have since punished players who have violated its tour regulations. In one of the rich ironies, the same players who have said they want to play less have gone to court so they can play more on the DP World Tour. (By the way, I love the nickname for them – ‘The Sour 16.’)
“We want to coexist” with “all the current ecosystems within the game of golf, and we want to do that with the PGA Tour,” Norman told Fox News last month. How exactly would that look in his fantasy world? “I would say support the players … and give their members the opportunity to have other places to go,” he said. “They’re independent contractors. They have every right to do that.”
Graeme McDowell watches his drive at the 10th tee during the 2022 JP McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor in Limerick, Ireland. (Photo: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)
Except Norman’s circuit prevented Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell from playing in the Horizon Irish Open. Apparently, this notion of his doesn’t work both ways.
The circumstances of Graeme McDowell, who signed with LIV Golf, indicate that Norman isn’t allowing players to freely go and play elsewhere. McDowell, who had agreed to play the Horizon Irish Open, a tournament he had played the past 20 years anyway, in order to get a waiver to compete in the Saudi International in February. But he reneged on the deal because it conflicted with last week’s LIV event in Portland.
“I tried to be fair and I tried to be open with them and put all my cards on the table. Of course, I was very disappointed that the second event fell against the Irish Open. I would have loved to have been there last week,” McDowell told the Irish Independent. “The only thing I can say is I have to be all-in. I’m 43 and 380th in the world. My value to these guys is only so much. I have to try to commit the best I can to the LIV Tour, and that meant not obviously being able to play last week.”
He added: “Listen, I’d love to be back at the Irish Open next year and like I say I can only apologize to the Irish golf fans that I wasn’t there last week. And like I say, unfortunately, I had pretty good reasons for it regards what I have to commit to with the LIV Tour. I have to be all-in with those events. I can’t just dip my toe in.”
And here’s the rub. The same guys who have complained about how hard they had it on the PGA Tour no longer have the luxury of picking their schedule. They have been bought and paid for quite handsomely, and now have to show up when and where they are told (here’s hoping none of the wives of American players go into labor during the two-week swing to Bangkok and Jeddah).
Had McDowell still been an independent contractor, do you think he would’ve missed his homeland’s national open? When he was growing up, do you think he dreamed of winning the Irish Open or a 54-hole shotgun start in Portland?
Free agency in golf – before long it may have some players wanting to fire their agents Freddie Freeman style.
“Listen to the players for once,” said Patrick Reed.
NORTH PLAINS, Ore. — What’s that old adage about communication being the hallmark of a good relationship? Apparently the same goes for professional golfers and their tours as it does for significant others.
Among the many talking points at press conferences this week ahead of the LIV Golf Invitational Series event at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club – where there were enough scripted answers to fill a bingo sheet – was the lack of communication and transparency between the PGA Tour, its players and LIV Golf.
From Patrick Reed saying the Tour should’ve “listened to the players for once” to Pat Perez saying the Tour could’ve at the very least spoken with LIV, here’s a rundown of how players reacted to questions about what could have been.
Pat Perez sported a shirt featuring $100 bills to the LIV Golf pro-am party, which seemed fitting.
Pat Perez wore a button-down shirt to the LIV Golf pro-am party on Tuesday night in North Plains, Oregon, that was so garish, so outrageous that only the words of that renowned wordsmith Phil Mickelson would do it justice: it was obnoxiously something, that is for sure.
Greedy? Well, the shirt featured a motif of $100 bills, which was only fitting since Perez sold out for the Benjamins. It was meant as quite the super flex – imagine his friends and fellow LIV defectors telling him, ‘well played,’ and yucking it up, maybe his wife tabbed it “iconic” as she labeled the Saudi-backed league in her bizarre Tik Tok post. But the shirt only showed his lack of respect for the PGA Tour, his place of work since 2002, which gave him a platform to earn more than $28 million in career earnings. However, Perez in his money shirt would make a fitting personal logo or better yet a perfect representation for all of LIV Golf.
It’s sad that we’ve reached the point in this charade where Perez is being praised for being one of the only LIV players to admit that he made the leap for the money. He went so far as to literally wear it proudly rather than hide behind the lark of ‘growing the game,’ or so many of the other sham justifications.
“This opportunity has been like winning the lottery for me,” he said.
Perez , to his credit, has managed to keep his card all these years despite just three PGA Tour wins, sometimes just squeaking inside the top 125. He was marking time until PGA Tour Champions at age 50 when thanks to the help of Dustin Johnson he was handed a lifeline – and reportedly some $20 million in guaranteed money – to jump ship to LIV Golf. Hardly anyone is going to miss him.
When Rory McIlroy mentioned that some of the LIV players were duplicitous, he had others first and foremost in mind, but Perez has to be first-team All-duplicitous after his rant against Mickelson and all things Saudi golf at the Genesis Invitational in February, which is really worth a full read but here are some select excerpts.
“I would never say anything bad about the Tour because I’ve had an unbelievable life doing it, and I still have the Champ Tour to think about it. I’m exempt on the Champions Tour for as long as I want to play. That’s an unbelievable type of retirement thing on top of the retirement package that we have already. I’ve got no reason to bitch about anything. I’m kind of one of those lucky guys that I think I see it the right way,” he said.
“For me to make roughly $40 million total with everything of a guy that got kicked out of college, that whole thing and was supposed to be a garbage man, really. For me, yeah, I’ve earned every penny of it because we have to do it all the time,” he said.
That was followed up by another all-time takedown of Mickelson during a podcast appearance in early March on Golf Subpar with Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz, which Golfweek detailed here.
But Perez did warn us in February that he was susceptible to flip. “You throw me a hundred and I actually get it, I’m gone,” he said. “I would take it. Why wouldn’t you?”
All Greg Norman had to do was show him the money. Apparently, his price was a lot less than a hundred – or was he referring to just one Benji?
World Golf Hall of Famer and Fred Couples, speaking to Golf.com, so far is the most outspoken player to call out Mickelson, Perez and the rest of the duplicitous. He delivered some choice words specially for Perez.
“I heard of all people Perez was a little confrontational,” Couples said of the press conference ahead of Perez’s LIV debut this week in Oregon. “He’s a grain of sand in this Tour. He should be soft and kind, but he’s, like, raising his voice. I’m done with it.”
Couples saved his best for Mickelson:
“Have you ever seen Phil look so stupid in his life? They know it’s a joke,” and added, “I don’t think I’ll ever to talk to him again.”
