Tiger Woods Is Officially Not A LIV Golf Guy

LIV Golf made an offer to Tiger Woods that he couldn't refuse, yet he refused it. Denied Coke, the upstart league collected a bunch of Pepsi — some flat and some still appealing — to mount their attack against the PGA Tour. Both factions are represented at the Open's St. Andrew's showcase, where the topic remains top of mind.

Woods, once again the center of attention as he makes what could be his last competitive strides on the venerable course, took his shot at contextualizing his thoughts after largely staying out of the fray for the past few months. His answer should erase any doubt that he's fully committed, both to the PGA Tour and to being insanely competitive.

"What's the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt?"

Woods put a very sharp point on something that makes LIV dull. There's just a general lack of wanting it. A profound absence of really needing it. And it's something that they can never truly fix because, deep down, the players will always know they are playing a division down and are, at any given time, halfway around the world away from 95 percent of the world's top 100 golfers. That and most of the organization-building has been done with the simple pitch of "hey, do you like money?" It's tough to get everyone to truly care about winning and conjuring competitive fire while using that filter.

If you're keeping score at home, Woods' complete thoughts on LIV aren't surprising. It's nice to have him on the record, though. Makes the battle lines a bit clearer and it's helpful to have the many reasons outside of ethics that this whole circus is troublesome enumerated in front of the biggest microphone.