Anonymous Pro Reveals He Wants To Punch Talor Gooch In The Face

The LIV Golf player's antics haven't gone down well with at least one fellow pro

Talor Gooch takes a tee shot during the 2022 LIV Golf Chicago event
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Talor Gooch was hardly the highest-profile player in the first intake of LIV Golf players. The American was named in the field for June’s event at London’s Centurion Club alongside the likes of Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson.

However, while the controversy that plagued Mickelson at the start of the year has dissipated and Johnson has done his talking on the course, including winning the LIV Golf Invitational tournament in Boston, Gooch has emerged as one of the Saudi-backed venture’s most divisive figures after a series of high-profile incidents.

 

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However, according to Alan Shipnuck writing for Golf Digest, Gooch's antics are not proving popular with everyone, with one unnamed pro saying: “He always seemed like a nice guy, but now I just want to punch him in the face.” According to the report, Shipnuck pleaded with the player to put his name to the quote, but he refused, saying: “I want to because the guys out here would love it, but I don’t need all the noise that would come with that.”

After the most recent LIV Golf event, in Chicago, Gooch took a sly dig at Shane Lowry, mirroring the Irishman’s words following his victory in the BMW PGA Championship, captioning an Instagram video with “another one for the good guys” as his 4 Aces team claimed their fourth team victory in a row. Before that, he also attracted ridicule by comparing the atmosphere at LIV Golf’s second event in Portland, Oregon to the Ryder Cup

Not only that, but Gooch is also one of the names on the controversial antitrust lawsuit brought against the PGA Tour by a group of LIV Golf players as they attempt to have their PGA Tour suspensions lifted. Meanwhile, he also attracted consternation from some players after appearing in the DP World Tour's flagship event at Wentworth that Lowry won, despite having never played on the Tour before, which invited suggestions he'd denied a more worthy candidate an appearance. 

As to where Gooch has developed his newfound assuredness, he told Shipnuck it just needed time and some results. He said: “At every level it takes me just a second to get my feet under me, and when I do, I can compete at a high level. There’s no doubt it’s a comfort level of some sort. I think, from within, I have to prove to myself that I belong in a sense and that just comes through performance, through results. There’s a lot of cockiness that has to come with being great at golf, and some guys are a little bit more blessed with cockiness, and I just don’t think I’m as blessed as others. So I have to build it a little bit more.”

As well as being on the winning side for the 4 Aces four times out of five, Gooch has also enjoyed four top ten finishes in the individual events as his profile on the Series continues to rise - even if his newfound reputation for controversy clearly hasn't gone down well with everyone.

Mike Hall
Writer

Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories. 


He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game. 


Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course. 


Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.