Tom Watson used Masters Champions Dinner to show need for unity in golf

Honorary Starters at Augusta National want to see ‘best players playing against each other’

Two-time Masters winner Tom Watson has revealed how he used this week’s Champions Dinner at Augusta National as an example of showing the need for unity to be restored in the game.

The traditional Tuesday event brought PGA Tour players and LIV Golf players together in the same room at a time when talks are ongoing to try and shape a new landscape for the game.

Speaking after he’d joined Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player on the first tee in their roles as Honorary Starters at the season’s first major, Watson offered his opinion about what was going on in the game.

Two-time Masters champion Honorary Starter during a press conference on the opening day of the 88th Masters at Augusta National Golf Club. Picture: The Masters

“Well, we all know golf is fractured with the LIV Tour and the PGA Tour doing the different things they are doing,” said the 74-year-old, who claimed his first Green Jacket in 1977 before becoming a double winner at the Georgia venue four years later.

“You know, I got up at the Champions Dinner, and it was really a wonderful event. We were sitting down and we were having great stories about Seve Ballesteros and people were laughing and talking. I said to Mr Ridley [Fred, the Augusta National chairman], ‘do you mind if I say something about being here together with everybody?’ He said, ‘please do’.

“And I got up and I'm looking around the room, and I'm seeing just a wonderful experience everybody is having. They are jovial. They are having a great time. They are laughing. I said, ‘ain't it good to be together again?’ And there was kind of a pall from the joviality, and it quieted down, and then Ray Floyd got up and it was time to leave.

“And, in a sense, I hope that the players themselves took that to say, you know, we have to do something. We have to do something. We all know it's a difficult situation for professional golf right now. The players really kind of have control I think in a sense. What do they want to do? We'll see where it goes. We don't have the information or the answers. I don't think the PGA Tour or the LIV Tour really have an answer right now.

“But I think in this room, I know the three of us want to get together. We want to get together like we were at that Champions Dinner, happy, the best players playing against each other. The bottom line; that's what we want in professional golf, and right now, we don't have it.”

Nicklaus and Player were later asked what they thought the best outcome will be for the game, with Tiger Woods having been part of a PGA Tour delegation that met PIF chief Yasir Al-Rumayyan in the Bahamas recently.

“The best outcome is the best players play against each other all the time,” said six-time Masters champion Nicklaus. “I think we'll get there. And I certainly hope that happens, the sooner the better.”

Concurring, Player said he felt the confrontation in the game since LIV came on the scene had been “unhealthy”. At a time when viewing figures in the US have nosedived, the three-time Augusta National winner added: “The public don't like it, and we as professionals don't like it, either.”