PGA: LIV and Let Die

By BRUCE LOWITT

After exchanging smiles and handshakes with Phil Mickelson during final practice for the Masters, five-time champion Tiger Woods kneecapped the LIV Tour star with a nine iron and shouted, “No rebel who cut ties with the PGA has the right to tarnish the grounds of Augusta National.”

Woods then pulled the LIV-logo cap from Mickelson’a head and flung it into a congregation of alligators just off the course. But when he tried to rip off Mickelson’s LIV shirt, Woods was restrained by close friend Justin Thomas and defending champion Scottie Scheffler.

“If (LIV golfers) are invited to play in the Masters, that should be the end of it,” Scheffler said later. “The fact that they’re turncoats who abandoned the PGA for the enormous bucks being paid by a corrupt and murderous Saudi Arabian monarchy should have no bearing on who plays here.”

Woods, acknowledging that walking Augusta’s hilly course has become increasingly difficult as he continues to recover from a 2021 high-speed car crash near Los Angeles, stormed off the course after his encounter with Mickelson, only stopping to fling Brooks Koepka’s LIV bag and clubs into the water.

“Just told him to clean up his act,” Woods muttered as he disappeared into the clubhouse.

His encounter with Mickelson, who insisted he would play despite his dislocated left kneecap, was one of several among PGA and LIV golfers after Greg Norman, CEO of the renegade tour, told The Daily Telegraph that if one of the 18 LIV golfers in the Masters wins it, the other 17 will storm the 18^th green to congratulate the champion by dousing him with Mahmood Saeed Beverage Industry’s non-alcoholic beer.

“Could you imagine what a scene that would be? I mean besides no one wanting to actually drink that stuff,” Norman told the British newspaper.

“Yeah, I know what a scene that would be,” said Tyrrell Hatton, who has never come close to winning the Masters, finished 52^nd a year ago and whose hair-trigger temper is legendary on the PGA Tour. “It’d be a shit show,” Hatton told The Augusta Chronicle.

“I’ve already told some of my buddies here to, ahem, explain to those traitors that if they try to rush No. 18 we’ll force-feed them that non-alcoholic crap and bury them in the sand traps. In fact, it’d be better of they just don’t play, period.”

Although he denied any knowledge of who might have done what to whom as the start of the tournament approached, Hatton expressed no remorse at reports that an LIV foursome of Bubba Watson, Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia and Charl Schwartzel experienced severe bouts of food poisoning after Tuesday night’s Masters Champions Dinner; LIV golfers Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann suffered multiple injuries when they were run over by out-of-control golf carts during Wednesday’s practice; and the LIV trio of Mito Pereira, Abraham Ancer and Louis Oosthuizen were mugged Tuesday night while wandering through Augusta’s Old Town.

“Wow,” Masters Chairman Fred Ridley said, barely suppressing a smile. “I mean, I’ve never seen a run of bad luck like these LIV guys had. Never.”