Tiger Woods Talked LIV Golf With Talor Gooch at the Masters

On a recent podcast, the LIV golfer shared a private conversation he had with Woods at Augusta National.

Talor Gooch—who just won back-to-back LIV events in Australia and Singapore—is opening up about a conversation he had with Tiger Woods at the Masters about LIV Golf. 

Gooch recently joined the Fore the People podcast with J.J. Killeen and John Peterson, where he recounted an exchange with the 15-time major champion that occurred on the Augusta National driving range. 

According to Gooch, while Woods was warming up, he seemed comfortable chatting about LIV Golf’s teams and schedule, despite his harsh public criticism of the league. 

“So I have kind of a funny story,” Gooch told Killeen and Peterson. “So at Augusta, one of the mornings I was warming up, Tiger was right next to me warming up. And he was like, ‘Man, you’re with Bubba’s team now, right?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah.’ He’s like, ‘You all are going to Adelaide, right?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘Man, they got some great golf there.’”

Before LIV’s second season, Gooch transferred from Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces GC squad to Bubba Watson’s rebranded RangeGoats GC. Woods, a staunch supporter of the PGA Tour, seemed to be familiar with both the move and the league’s 14-tournament season. 

In November at the Hero World Challenge, Woods’s event in the Bahamas, the five-time Masters champion expressed his continued disapproval of the Saudi-backed tour. 

“They’ve spent probably close to $2 billion this year. Who’s to say they can’t spend $4 or $5 billion next year? You know, we just don’t know. It’s an endless pit of money. But that doesn’t necessarily create legacies either,” Woods said. “You want to compare yourself to (Ben) Hogan. You want to compare yourself to (Sam) Snead. You want to compare yourself to (Jack) Nicklaus. You can’t do that over there, but you can on this Tour.”

Woods also called for the removal of Greg Norman as LIV’s CEO: “I think Greg has to go, first of all,” he said. Woods reportedly turned down a contract offer of more than $700 million to join LIV. 

On the podcast, Gooch revealed the rest of his conversation with Woods, in which he apparently shared travel tips for Singapore, LIV’s next tour stop. 

“Then he’s like, ‘have you ever been to Singapore?’ I was like, ‘man, first time.’ And he’s like, ‘man, you need to go to the casino at Marina Bay Sands.’ It’s the famous hotel casino here. You’ve all seen it, for sure. It looks like there’s a boat on top of three towers. It’s this massive casino hotel. And the shops and everything.

“So anyways, Tiger’s like, ‘first time I was in Singapore, I had to do this clinic there, right?’ And he’s like, ‘I got introduced to the guy who basically owns the Disney of Asia,’ and he had to be there for whatever reason. And so he’s like, ‘this guy is like, hey, do you want to go get some dinner tonight? My favorite place in Singapore is at this hotel casino.”’ And then, ‘do you like to gamble at all?’ And Tiger’s like, ‘a little bit.’ 

“And so, he said, ‘I want to teach you how to play baccarat.’ And Tiger’s like, ‘we go over there, and this guy starts out playing million-dollar hands.’ And so, Tiger’s like, ‘this was earlier in my career. I quickly learned the difference between being rich, and being rich rich.’”

After Gooch finished his story, Peterson noted that it seemed as though Woods was “paying attention” to LIV. 

“I guarantee you, if you were to ask 95% of golf fans the week of the Masters where the LIV tour was going the next two weeks in a row, there’s no way they would have been able to tell you Australia and Singapore. So Tiger’s paying attention,” the former PGA Tour player said. 

Gooch echoed the statement: “Yup, that was my takeaway too.”