LIV Golf League commentator Jerry Foltz has been highly critical of the TV coverage at this year's Masters tournament, suggesting host broadcasters are showing bias towards PGA Tour golfers.
Foltz - who hosts the Fairway To Heaven podcast alongside fellow analyst Su-Ann Heng - believes the coverage of LIV players at The Masters this week has been tainted by "petty" and "spiteful" comments towards the 54-hole competition.
Bryson DeChambeau is leading LIV's charge at Augusta with the American one of 13 players on the PGA Tour's rival circuit trying to lift the first Major of the season.
But Foltz does not believe some analysts reporting on the tournament have been doing so in a fair manner and are guilty of tipping their opinions in favor of PGA Tour golfers due to being "basically controlled" by the US-based circuit.
On the Fairway To Heaven podcast this week, Foltz said: "So many people still feel threatened by LIV and that's their defence mechanism - that's all it is.
Jerry Foltz
"I have sat here for two days, three days and watched wall-to-wall coverage of The Masters with a lot of people who I respect, and the little petty talking points and the little establishment-type over-riding agenda, so to speak, is absolutely maddening.
"But they're doing their job, they're towing the line for now because they're all basically controlled by the PGA Tour."
Foltz continued his point by highlighting one particular analyst - who he did not name - who stated during this year's broadcast that LIV golfers "don't count" after being asked who they thought could stand a chance of winning The Masters.
Foltz said: "There's one commentator who I know and I like, personally, and I used to work with who last year on set said 'oh no, the LIV guys don't count, none of those guys can win, none of those guys can contend, they don't even play real golf anymore.
"LIV guys last year finished second, second, and fourth. And now all four are LIV guys with [Jon] Rahm [coming over]. Yesterday, he said the same exact thing. I have last year's on my phone, and I'm like 'how do you say that with a straight face?'
"How do you [purport] to have any credibility when a large collection of the best players in the game aren't playing the tour that pays your paychecks, so you have to go out of your way to be petty and spiteful towards them? I just don't get it.
"It's going to be so fun to watch when it all comes together and all of those puppets realise 'oh, we didn't get our way and LIV might not be all that bad after all.' It's just going to be so much fun to watch. They're going to be crawling."
Louis Oosthuizen - who appeared on the latest Fairway To Heaven podcast - at the 2023 Masters
On the episode in which Stinger GC captain Louis Oosthuizen appeared - one of three players Foltz and Heng felt should have been extended an invite to The Masters - the former Nationwide Tour golfer went on to state that one of the most common messages in PGA Tour broadcasts relates to not seeing LIV players as much as they want or used to.
Foltz argued that LIV Golf is more readily accessible than the PGA Tour before making a jibe about the US-based circuit's declining TV viewership figures in 2024.
Foltz said: "There are a lot of things that they bring out that are positive about the quality of player that are playing in The Masters that happen to be LIV Golf League members... although, on these shows, they're not LIV Golf League members, they're LIV tour players. There is no such thing as a LIV tour, just so they know... But, they say good things about the player, but they always back it up with duh duh duh...
"I was watching the par 3 contest and the over-riding sentiment was 'man, we just don't get to see him anymore.' I'm sitting there watching it on ESPN going 'yeah you can, all you gotta do is channel surf and CW is a network - it's one of five that's in every house in America, that's twice as many homes as you're in - it doesn't take much effort if you want to see them.
"Fortunately, millions of people around the world watch us on our various platforms, including on The CW in the States. It's maddening.
"There is a reason why their ratings are down day after day, week after week, and ours are growing - exponentially in some cases. Yep, what can we do? We're just shills! We're just shills! We're just shills. We're just shills for the recreational league. It's the men's scramble."
