“Don’t Have the Best Players”: Rory McIlroy Gets a Brutal Reality Check as Former Coach Pete Cowen Plays Down TGL’s Impact

Since its first unveiling, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s TGL has been touted as a competitor to LIV Golf. The team play format and the fact that Tiger Woods, like LIV Golf team captains, owns a stake in his Jupiter Links GC only bolstered the argument. However, Pete Cowen, the former coach of Rory McIlroy, thinks otherwise. Speaking with Noah Lack for EssentiallySports, the veteran coach shares his honest feelings about the tech-infused league.

Cowen appeared candid throughout the hour-long chat that meandered through Brooks Koepka’s Major win to OWGR’s LIV Golf snub. So, when the TGL was inevitably brought up, Cowen didn’t hold back. His skepticism about its success certainly showed in the exclusive interview with EssentiallySports.

Pete Cowen believes LIV Golf has an edge over TGL and PGAT

Dubbing the current situation as an “inflection point” in golf, Lack asked if the veteran coach feels LIV Golf should be worried about TGL. Cowen, however, doesn’t think it’d make much of a difference because of a very simple reason. LIV Golf has the best players pitted against each other in every event. “They have got the best players playing in every tournament.”

Contrarily, on the PGA Tour, the field doesn’t always include the cream of the crop. Per the veteran coach, that gives them a whip hand over the PGAT and TGL. Notably, TGL, too, will have four players in a team, and they won’t be playing week in, week out, as the organizers don’t want to cause a disruption in the official PGAT calendar.

Adding further, the British coach said in the EssentiallySports Fancast, “The LIV players play every week.” The season-long LIV leaderboard testifies to the veteran coach’s point. Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Talor Gooch, and Bryson DeChambeau all played in all fourteen events this season. It is one of the key reasons behind LIV Golf’s sway over golf fans globally. “They [are] competing against good players every week,” said the coach in the ES Fancast.

The comparison was inevitable, though. After all, McIlroy and Woods have been two of the most vocal critics of LIV Golf. Not just that, in the last one and a half years, they were the vanguards of players’ interest in the wake of the $3 billion merger agreement. Rory McIlroy, shockingly, left the board, citing professional reasons.

Read More: Tiger Woods Receives Strong Verdict as Phil Mickelson Turns Inspiration Behind Legendary Coach Pete Cowen’s Insight

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