Lee Westwood has not had a good season.
For the first time in his professional career, he did not play in a major championship. Instead, he has played in 11 LIV Golf events, where he has failed to record a single top-10 finish.
Westwood’s struggles were on full display this past weekend at Trump Bedminster in New Jersey, where he finished the tournament dead last at 20-over-par.
Cameron Smith won the LIV Golf Bedminster event by seven shots, leading Westwood to respond with a laughing emoji to a tweet with the updated Official World Golf Ranking.
Smith dropped from eighth to ninth despite the victory.
Westwood, a staunch supporter of LIV Golf, felt this was a joke—golfers on LIV do not receive OWGR points.
English golfer Eddie Pepperell, known for his comedic presence on social media, decided to chime in and respond to Westwood. He did so cheekily.
I’ll tell you what’s a joke Lee; you earning 3X the average annual UK salary in one week for shooting +20 over 3 rounds.
— Eddie Pepperell (@PepperellEddie) August 14, 2023
“I’ll tell you what’s a joke Lee,” Pepperell tweeted. “You earning 3X the average annual UK salary in one week for shooting +20 over three rounds.”
Westwood, a co-captain of the LIV Golf team Majestics GC, received $120,000 for finishing in dead last; hence why Pepperell chirped the 50-year-old Englishman.
But Pepperell did not stop there.
He criticized Westwood for playing like ‘a turnip’. He slammed professional golf too—including the PGA Tour and Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s TGL golf league—for bowing down to money.
Professional golf used to be about playing well to earn money. (Still is for the most part to be fair) It’s not jealousy to point out how LIV is rewarding (in some instances) poor performance in a big way monetarily. Not something I can get on board with personally.
— Eddie Pepperell (@PepperellEddie) August 14, 2023
It’s all laughable. From you earning £100k last week for playing like a turnip to the TGL/PIP.
Pro golf has degraded itself to being just about the money. Maybe it always has been and I’m just naive, but it isn’t doing much to improve the sport and genuinely ‘grow the game’.
— Eddie Pepperell (@PepperellEddie) August 14, 2023
“Professional golf used to be about playing well to earn money. (Still is for the most part to be fair) It’s not jealousy to point out how LIV is rewarding (in some instances) poor performance in a big way monetarily. Not something I can get on board with personally,” Pepperell noted.
“It’s all laughable,” Pepperell continued. “From you earning £100k last week for playing like a turnip to the TGL/PIP. Pro golf has degraded itself to being just about the money. Maybe it always has been, and I’m just naive, but it isn’t doing much to improve the sport and genuinely ‘grow the game’.”
Advocates of LIV Golf have argued that they are growing the game.
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The same can be said about those who support the PGA Tour, mainly because of its partnership with the DP World Tour and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF).
Yet, the financial purses on both tours continue to swell, and Pepperell, who is never afraid of being honest, just called it for what it is.
Just as he did at the 2018 Open Championship, when he admitted to playing the final round ‘hungover,’ despite shooting a 3-under 67 alongside Phil Mickelson.
Pepperell routinely provides laughs, but he consistently provides honest insight too.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko for more golf coverage. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough too.