The post ‘WTF is going on in some players head’: Pro blasts Saudi league players appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘WTF is going on in some players head’: Pro blasts Saudi league players appeared first on Golf.

Mike Lorenzo-Vera, a longtime pro on the DP World Tour, voiced one of the stronger stances against the upstart Saudi league, questioning why players would join and saying that he never would, over a series of posts on Twitter. 

“WTF is going on in some players head ????” he wrote late last week. “Not enough [money emoji] on the @PGATOUR ??? Not well organized ? Bad schedule ? Bad courses ? Bad crowed [sp]? 

“Before the LIV , looks like they were happy ! UNGRATEFULNESS !!!! That’s the only word that comes to my mind. #education”

Lorenzo-Vera’s tweet, along with his responses to comments, appear to be in response to an incident involving Sergio Garcia at the Wells Fargo Championship. There, during Thursday’s first round, Garcia was told by an official that he had found a lost ball after the allotted three minutes, to which the Spaniard responded: “I can’t wait to leave this Tour. I can’t wait to get out of here, my friend. Just a couple more weeks and I won’t have to deal with you anymore.”

That comment appeared to be a reference to the LIV Golf Invitational Series, the Saudi-funded tour headed by Greg Norman, whose first event is in early June. Various outlets later reported that Garcia’s agent confirmed that the player had requested a release to play on the tour. 

After Lorenzo-Vera’s initial tweet, he responded to comments. 

Wrote TurnerWheelz: “Do you know what’s great? I watch golf 3 to 4 days a week, I just love the game. I’m recently a paraplegic from a rare autoimmune disorder. It’s great to hear people complain about how horrible it is to earn millions of dollars playing golf. That’s just so arrogant.”

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Responded Lorenzo-Vera: “Sorry to hear that man. I thing that plenty of player are against it , but are quiet , just in case they have a piece of the cake one day. Honestly , the guys should say. « It’s a s**t load of money. I have the opportunity to have it. I will go for it. »

“That would be more understandable than this attitude of spitting on the @PGATOUR and @DPWorldTour and the growing the game thing… That LIV is nothing more than an exhibition for the moment… it has nothing to do with a golf tour.” 

Wrote Kiwi Mick: “Yes & no I think.. Mike I ask u this, if you lost your card this year… do you go to challenge tour spend 150K to make very little prize money or try a new tour where you could win 5 million and remain playing golf at a high level.”

Responded Lorenzo-Vera: “Time to be a role model , and work my a** of to stay on Tour. I won’t play those events. Even if the money HUGE ! Btw if I loose my card , NO CHANCE I get invited there. [Laughing emoji] but anyway , I will never play there.”

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Sam Harrop, who has shared golf song parodies online, asked Lorenzo-Vera if he had been approached by the Saudi league to play. 

“But saying what I say in public , and if I manage to play better golf again , I guaranty I’ll never be contacted,” Lorenzo-Vera responded. “And I very happy about it.”

Lorenzo-Vera has won over $5.5 million on the formerly named European Tour, and notably, he was tied for second at the halfway point of the 2020 PGA Championship. His comments toward the Saudi league were also not his first, as he shared a 3-minute and 40-second video on Instagram in February, where he suggested that those playing in the league donate their money to charity.

“Hello, everybody. I’m doing this video because there is something that I don’t really like of what’s going on now with the Saudi league, and I would like to speak my voice on my social network,” he said in the video. “So I speak in English because hopefully this message goes a bit beyond the borders of France. I’m going to explain to you what has been going on through my mind the last week. I’ve been speaking with my agent about the Saudi league, and it was kind of like, well, imagine, man, if I play better and I can access to that league, it’s a huge amount of money that you can win. And it’s like a lottery ticket for the family, and that’s fantastic and stuff, OK. 

“And during the week after that, it’s crazy. I was at the players lounge at during the tournament and the BBC was on, on TV, and there was a documentary about what’s going on in Yemen. And I’ve seen the kids, plenty of kids dying of lack of food and so skinny and so sad and I mean … This is just insane, the situation there. And I am no journalist, war journalist. I don’t understand everything, but the thing that I could understand about that commentary is that Saudi’s involved and … Feels strange to look at this. So maybe I don’t understand everything but as we say in France, there is no smoke without fire. 

“And I would like to speak to the guys that signed for the league and that message. Maybe you could use that money, not all of it, but a good amount of that money, to give to charity for the kids in Yemen to bring some food to them. That would be pretty interesting. And at least I would do it. That is for sure. And I know I’m not in the situation and it can sound maybe jealous or whatever, but I think that sometime we need to come back to earth a bit. 

“And I’ve seen the comments of Andrew Coltart and I think that he’s just 100 percent right — sometime we lose the reality and I’ve done the same sometimes; look, I’ve played twice in Saudi. And the more the time passes and the more I feel uncomfortable with it and we just need to not forget where we come from sometimes. Like the European Tour, the PGA Tour have been here for us and we can thank them. I think that to go away from them just for money, it feels a bit strange. And that money feels even more strange.”

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The post Pro hits a shot ‘to show respect to my god’ Phil Mickelson appeared first on Golf.

The post Pro hits a shot ‘to show respect to my god’ Phil Mickelson appeared first on Golf.

Mike Lorenzo-Vera, on the 621-yard, par-5 13th hole at the Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was about 20 yards from the right edge of the green. The pin was about 10 feet in from there. Or, more simply put, he would need a prayer to get his third shot close.

Lorenzo-Vera said a Hail Lefty. 

“My religion is @philmickelson,” Lorenzo-Vera wrote on Instagram. “Had to show respect to my god.”

Lorenzo-Vera hit his shot nearly as high as he hit it far during Saturday’s final round of the European Tour’s Golf in Dubai Championship. The Phil flop. Lorenzo-Vera took a full swing with his wedge, the ball was in the air for about two seconds, and it landed maybe an inch from the fringe before rolling to about 2 feet from the cup. 

“Wow. What a shot. Shot of the day,” a commentator said on the broadcast.  

“What a shot,” another commentator said.  

“There was so much that could have gone wrong with that,” he continued. “So much. … He could have de-lofted it. He could have caught it very high in the clubface and not have reached the putting surface.”

Lorenzo-Vera smiled after the shot, handed his wedge to his caddie and grabbed his putter. He would make the birdie putt on his way to a seven-under 65 and a 23-under total, which tied him for second place.   

“Full swing to hit it 10 yards,” the first commentator said. “Great shot from Lorenzo-Vera. He smiled. He loved that. He knew how difficult that was.” 

“I mean that’s hard enough to do on a Thursday or Friday, let alone on a back nine on a Sunday when you’re in contention,” the second commentator said.  

Editor’s note: For context, the PGA Tour, earlier this year, released a “Phil Mickelson’s all-time best flop shots” video. Watch it below.

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The post ‘Nobody knows there’s going to be a Ryder Cup’: French pro rips state of golf in France appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘Nobody knows there’s going to be a Ryder Cup’: French pro rips state of golf in France appeared first on Golf.

The Ryder Cup heads to Le Golf National outside of Paris in September, but according to one pro, French golf is in a dire place.

The New York Times published an interview with French pro Michael Lorenzo-Vera on Tuesday. While Lorenzo-Vera is excited for the Ryder Cup, he had only bad things to say about the game of golf and its reputation in his home country.

“Golf is not a good thing here. It’s for rich people and spoiled kids. That’s the image we have,” Lorenzo-Vera told the Times. “Golf is a very private thing for people in France. Private courses for only rich families or rich people — that’s it.”

But surely some excitement is building for the arrival of one of the game’s premier events this year? Not so, says Lorenzo-Vera. “People don’t care about the Ryder Cup. Honestly, nobody knows there’s going to be a Ryder Cup in France. Only the golfers know. That’s it. There won’t be many French there.”

Aside from the country having “only one competitive golf course,” Lorenzo-Vera attributes the lack of successful golfers in France to a general societal attitude that is preventing golfers from reaching their full potential.

French golfers “push too hard and complain. We get angry and swear, ” he said, adding that “the French player typically doesn’t putt very well, either.” Instead of crafting a natural and effective (though ugly) golf swing a la Jim Furyk, he claims French golfers just “want to always look good.”

Lorenzo-Vera then sums up his harsh assessment, identifying the root cause for the country’s failures in the game: “the French education points out the negative things instead of pushing hard on the positive things. It brings you down mentally. This is why we don’t have any big champions.”

It sounds like the game of golf has not taken hold in France, and it’s unlikely it ever will. Which begs the question, why exactly is the Ryder Cup going there anyway?

You can read the full interview (and it’s well worth the read) over at NYTimes.com.

The post ‘Nobody knows there’s going to be a Ryder Cup’: French pro rips state of golf in France appeared first on Golf.