Nick Faldo Claims LIV Golfers Will Lack Career 'Satisfaction'

Nick Faldo has questioned the "satisfaction" players are getting from competing in LIV Golf in his latest comments about the Saudi-backed league.

Faldo has been a consistent critic of LIV and predicted earlier this year that the 54-hole team format won’t survive because “nobody is interested”. Now he has given another damning assessment of the series on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio’s 'Gravy & The Sleeze' after suggesting playing on LIV won't be very "memorable".

The six-time Major champion acknowledged the appeal of the huge money on offer for players, especially after Brooks Koepka admitted he swapped the PGA Tour for LIV Golf because he could not turn down the $100million+ contract on offer, as he battled knee injuries and a confidence crisis. 

But Faldo questioned if the leading LIV players are really happy as the likes of Talor Gooch, who won LIV’s individual championship, has plummeted down to 214th in the World Rankings and is currently ineligible for any Majors in 2024.

Faldo reflected: "When I look back at my career, you don’t think of the dollar sign. You think, I went through a swing change for two years and then came out of it and finally won my first Major and then became a pretty darn decent golfer for five years. 

"That makes you proud of what you did. And that’s with me forever. I mean, that’s where I see a difference. Sure, I would’ve loved to earn tens of millions more, I’m not denying that, but there’s something about competing and putting yourself through the wringer, and then you feel proud of your achievements. 

"That’s why I think the Tour’s competitive golf will stand up because their tour is not the same competition. It really isn’t. It is a different style of golf (LIV). And the Tour is the Tour, or the Tours, you know, and we would deem it as proper golf, 72 holes, 36-hole cut. 

"All of that is all part of your learning experience. Here’s the bottom line, you’ve got to strive, you know, everything in life is a struggle, isn’t it? So you strive and from striving, you then achieve something. So if you’ve achieved something, you then get satisfaction from doing that. And then from your satisfaction, you then create a memory. Well, if there’s nothing to strive for then there’s no memory."

Faldo, a former stalwart of Team Europe and team captain in 2008, was also asked about last month’s Ryder Cup at Marco Simone in Rome, where Luke Donald's men won 16.5-11.5.

Europe prevailed after Rory McIlroy, Tyrrell Hatton, Viktor Hovland and Jon Rahm contributed at least three points each. Along with the experience, Faldo felt Donald's rookies, Robert MacIntyre, Ludvig Aberg, Sepp Straka and Nicolai Hojgaard all made vital contributions too and were more effective than Zach Johnson's wildcards of Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka, Rickie Fowler, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and Sam Burns. 

Faldo added: “The Big Four (European players) came in and you’ve got to get a huge bunch of points. Then I thought it was very cool that our rookies, Hojgaard and Aberg and MacIntyre, America doesn't know a lot about these guys and that can be very useful. 

"So the captains can say: ‘Relax, you’ve all to gain this week. If you can just get me a point you’ve done a great job.’ Well, they did more than that. So we got that added bonus as well. And then we had to look at Zach’s picks, his six picks, I mean, all those guys are great guys, great golfers, but they were all running hot and cold, or trying to find their games and saying:  ‘I can turn it on for you, captain’.

“But I’ve been there and got the T-shirt. When you’re not playing great at a Ryder Cup I can promise you it is the worst arena to be playing in because you are under so much pressure to do something for the rest of the team. And you won’t find it, and we saw all of that unravel. And Europe was extremely focused. You could literally see it in their eyes right on the first tee. They stood up there and looked down the fairway. And America, to be honest, I looked and thought: ‘These guys, they’ve got too much peripheral vision. They’re just looking at everything.’ And Europe was very focused on the job at hand, what they had to do.”