Graeme McDowell admits the move to LIV Golf caused him some pain at the start but insists he has no regrets about joining the Saudi backed tour and believes golf will “come out the other side.”
Speaking on LIV’s own Fairway to Heaven podcast, the Smash GC golfer opened up about the move to 54-hole no cut golf and how he has felt refreshed since joining Brooks Koepka’s team for this season.
McDowell was one of the first players to move to LIV Golf in 2022, partially enforced having lost his PGA TOUR card. The 2010 US Open champion was on the end of a lot of criticism for his comments before the inaugural LIV event in London but now things have settled down he is content with his decision.
“Certainly no regrets,” he said. “I don’t have any personal regrets. I hate where the game is right now, and that’s obviously not necessarily on me; that’s just with the powers that be within the game of golf.
“I think ultimately we’re going to come out the other side of this with the game of golf in great shape.
“I think in any business there’s always disruption, inevitably there’s going to be disruption. And I think LIV has been a very healthy disruptor to a sport that the business model was slightly wrong and I think things needed to change.
“Unfortunately, change can be painful, but I think we’re through a lot of the pain now. There’s no doubt it was difficult at the beginning, especially being one of the original guys who were involved in the original push if you like when we had to go against the grain a little bit.
“It was hard. But as I sit here a third of the way through our third season with the personnel that we have on board now with the team and with the media product that we have, I think the momentum is really, really strong, and I feel ever more confident that it was the right decision to make.”
McDowell can count himself a touch fortunate to be in the LIV Golf League this term after two poor seasons on the circuit that saw him become a free agent after he left the Cleeks. His career appeared to be at an end having finished 39th and 42nd in the LIV rankings.
However, the 44-year-old was given a lifeline by five-time major winner Koepka and it has seen an upturn in form for him with individual finishes of 10th and 5th in his first four events including winning LIV Las Vegas with Smash GC.
“I am very happy with where I’m at; I love my schedule,” he said. “The ability I have to play a very, very competitive schedule against some of the best players in the world which is what I always wanted to do and have as much time with my family as I do nowadays.
“I don’t think I’ll play more than 18 or 19 times this year, which is a very light schedule for me. And there’s no doubt that’s been one of the tough transitions to make.
“I used to play between 25 and 30, and now, all of a sudden, you play 18 times a year, and you have to be more ready to play than I used to be.
“It used to be you could take a few weeks off and set yourself for three or four weeks schedule where week one might be a burner week where you might not be ready but you use it as a springboard to the second or third week.
“Whereas with LIV, you have to show up ready to go. And that’s been one of the biggest transitions for me. It’s taken me two or three seasons to figure that out, and how to put the foot on the accelerator from the first hole on Friday.
“LIV is way more aggressive, way more of a sprint than a marathon. So I’ve had to adjust my warm-ups with 54 guys on the range for the shotgun.
“But we’ve had a medium amount of success, and let’s hope we can kick on this season. That’s a long-winded way of saying I’m very comfortable where I’m at right now.
“I love the guys that I am with, I love the momentum that LIV has right now, and I think the future is bright.”
The Northern Irishman also feared he was potentially finished playing on LIV before Koepka came calling.
“I got myself in a little bit of a hole at the end of last season,” he confessed.
“I didn’t play well enough and got myself into that free trade category. I wasn’t automatic for ’24 and was in that scary place of needing to be picked up by… The Cleeks didn’t see a future with me as a Cleek, so I was going into that trade window.
“When I started looking around and doing the math, looking at guys who were contracted and guys who had deals, I am thinking to myself, I could be on the chopping block here. I could be done. It was kind of scary a little bit.
“I wasn’t ready to be done. I was starting to play well, starting to get the hang of LIV. I’d been talking to a couple of teams, but I had a really good conversation with Brooks at the Team Championship in Miami, and he said he may have a spot for me if things worked out.
“That was exciting but until he gave me the call and confirmed it, I was potentially at the end of the road with regards to my competitive golf career.
“I was looking to see what was going to be next, but in my heart, I knew I wasn’t ready for that, and I wasn’t ready to hang up the clubs yet.
“I felt like I had some competitive years left in me, and I am still motivated to play well.
“When I got the call, I could feel like a little switch was flicking inside me that I was going to be surrounded my the right type of players.
“We are going to be hard-working and highly motivated and that could be just what I need at this time of my career.”
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