'Listen To The Players For Once' - Reed And Perez Slam PGA Tour

Patrick Reed and Pat Perez aimed a succession of scathing remarks at the PGA Tour and Commissioner Jay Monahan ahead of their debut appearances in the LIV Golf Series at Pumpkin Ridge in Portland.

In what proved to be a tense press conference, Perez reiterated historic statements made by Greg Norman and insisted that PGA Tour players are independent contractors: "We should be able to do whatever we want. We are independent contractors. The [PGA] Tour has tried to strong-arm us all year and come with bans and suspensions and all that, and how'd that work? 

"Look how many guys are here. That didn't work at all. And how many Major winners do you have here compared to the John Deere? It's not even close. The [PGA] Tour wants to keep talking about strength of field and all that kind of stuff, the strength of field is here."

When asked if there was anything the PGA Tour and Commissioner Jay Monahan could have done to prevent them from making the leap to the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Series, Reed offered: "Listen to the players for once."

Perez added: "Could have at least taken the call from the LIV Group. At least take a meeting, see what it's all about. Monahan just shut it out from the start. Didn't want to listen, didn't wanna take a meeting, didn't wanna listen to anybody that maybe would have been interested, maybe would have been a little different but he doesn't listen to the players. Somehow the [PGA] Tour they keep talking about, oh, yeah, we work for you, we work for the players, we work for the players. It's the opposite. Seems like we work for them. We don't have a say in anything."

The PGA Tour responded to the ongoing threat of the LIV Golf Series with significant prize money increases for eight events in the 2023 season alongside changes to the FedEx Cup qualification and the introduction of limited field, no-cut, events. The PGA Tour and DP World Tour also announced a joint venture partnership that will see the two organisations strengthen their strategic alliance over the next 13 years.

Reed, who revealed he has resigned his PGA Tour membership, was expectedly outspoken about those changes: "Miraculously the purses now all of a sudden went skyrocketing back up on the PGA Tour - it just shows that they obviously believe that this is not only a true threat, but a great Tour as well if they're going and copying what we're doing. So for me, I believe when time comes, we'll have world ranking here. This is going to be a Tour that's going to be around forever, and at the end of the day, you play well, you're in the big events."

The duo will kickstart their LIV Golf careers in Portland on the 4Aces team, with Dustin Johnson as their captain. Talor Gooch rounds off the all-American team.