15 September 2023 , 17:06
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Graeme McDowell has revealed his comments surrounding LIV Golf's association with Saudi Arabia were "prepped" at the breakaway league's inaugural event at Centurion in June 2022.
McDowell became one of a number of big names to leave the PGA Tour and DP World Tour last summer and join the LIV Golf setup. The move proved to be a controversial one, following the startup league's backing from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF).
Unsurprisingly the circuit's pre-tournament press conferences at LIV's maiden event in St Albans were dominated with talk surrounding the circuit's links to the Middle Eastern state and sportswashing. One man in particular who was put in front of the media was former U.S. Open champion McDowell,
He said 15 months ago: "If Saudi Arabia want to use the game of golf as a way for them to get to where they want to be, I think we're proud to help them on that journey."
Over a year on from his comments the Northern Irishman has admitted his answer was one that had been prepared for him by LIV chiefs, and is ultimately something he regrets. "Going back to Centurion and that first press conference, I was not a paid ambassador for Saudi Arabia human rights," McDowell told The Thing About Golf Podcast.
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"I was a paid ambassador for a golf tour. You start answering questions that can't be answered. I regret those answers, not that they were necessarily wrong; that was what we had been prepped to say by this golf tour that's paying me.
Graeme McDowell joined LIV Golf last summer (Getty Images)"I'm not being paid by the Saudi Arabian human rights organisation, I'm being paid by this new start-up golf tour, which is a financially lucrative opportunity for me at this stage in my career. The end. People say 'well, if he had just said it was about the money'.
"Of course it was about the money, of course it was. It didn't need saying. Of course that's what I was there for, it was a business decision." The involvement of the Saudi funders has provided never-seen-before wealth within the game for golf, and for 44-year-old McDowell it proved to good of an opportunity to turn down.
"Being honest, the financial reward was just about enough to move the needle for me in my time of life," he added. I'm not going to tell you they paid me £100m because they didn't. They paid me enough to make the decision worthwhile in the space I was in in the sport."