Anirban Lahiri claims to know at least a dozen LIV Golf players who would sooner walk away from the sport altogether than return to the PGA Tour. The two-time European Tour winner says he shares the same stance on ever going back after almost four years away.
Lahiri, 38, says certain revelations about the inner workings of golf’s business left him so disillusioned that he has no desire to go back. The former world No.33 spent seven years on the PGA Tour before making the switch to LIV in the summer of 2022, where he plays for the team captained by Bryson DeChambeau, alongside Paul Casey, and has earned around £25million since moving.
Speaking to The Times, Lahiri dismissed any suggestion that LIV players are clamouring to leave as “the biggest joke ever. I will not name names, but I know at least a dozen players who’d rather not play golf than go back to the PGA Tour.”
Lahiri acknowledges he thoroughly enjoyed his seven years on the PGA Tour, yet recalls: “I learnt a lot about the business of golf and some of the things I learnt disillusioned me. I’ll leave it at that. That was enough for me not to want to go back, but that’s me personally.
“I’m sure others have different opinions of it, and I respect that as well. But to generalise that everybody is falling over backwards to come back to the PGA Tour is the same kind of propaganda we’ve had for four years.”
Thomas Pieters is another player firmly opposed to any notion of a return. He recently told the Dan on Golf Show: “I’m definitely never going back to the PGA Tour. I never liked that life. That’s not me having a go at the PGA Tour; it’s not for me. I tried it, and I just wasn’t happy there.
“If it [LIV] goes away, I’ll probably try and play some on the European Tour, or I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
He added: “We are just guessing right now, but if we’re playing for $5m next year, or I could play on the DP World Tour for $3m, but be close to home, that’s something I’d have to look at when it comes.
“Possibly, there are guys going. But I think that’s up to Scott [O’Neil, LIV’s chief executive] and his team to get this thing together, and we’ll just have to find out.”