Lee Westwood admits the ‘main issue’ LIV Golf are suffering with as he criticizes the PGA Tour

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Lee Westwood was one of the high-profile names to join LIV Golf back in 2022.

Numerous top-class players jumped ship from the PGA Tour to link up with LIV Golf three years ago, and the face of professional golf has completely changed ever since.

Westwood is someone who probably made the right move by joining LIV, considering the fact that his best years are definitely behind him now.

That doesn’t mean to say that he’s not still an exceptional golfer of course.

Westwood, now 52, qualified for The Open Championship last week, and he will still be dreaming of winning his first major.

He is clearly more than happy with the choice he made to join LIV. However, he was honest in admitting that there is one big problem facing the Saudi-backed golf league.

Lee Westwood on LIV Golf’s ‘main issue’ as he criticizes the PGA Tour

The man with 44 professional titles to his name often speaks a lot of sense concerning the state of the game of golf right now.

And that was no different when he was asked about where he sees LIV in the professional golfing pecking order at the moment, during an appearance on The 5 Clubs Podcast.

Westwood was asked what he believes the golfing landscape will look like in a few years’ time.

He said: “I don’t kind of profess to the idea that the best players in the world should play all the time together. They never have. The best players in the world come together for the major championships and then it used to be The Players Championship, but other than that it wasn’t really that way.

“I relate it back to the question. In 52 weeks of the year, there seems to be this problem with LIV playing tournaments on 14 of them. If you can’t accommodate 14 tournaments a year into a 52 tournament schedule then somebody is playing too many rounds of golf on their tour. There has got to be a bit of give and take in the world of golf but there doesn’t seem to be anybody willing to give up ground at the moment.“

Westwood then responded when asked whether he thinks Scott O’Neil will be good for LIV moving forward.

He explained: “Yeah, I think so. I think the main issue is that LIV don’t have world ranking points. Therefore, there are players playing on LIV who are world class who should be playing in major championships. I think it’s good that the PGA Tour are getting a new leader, that’s good for the game of golf. All these tours can start afresh again. The trouble is, when you’re dealing with the same people, there are always issues in the background, and there was always too much emotion flying around with the previous people in charge I think.“

That’s a fair criticism of the PGA Tour. Why can’t the two tours coexist alongside one another?

Lee Westwood’s results on LIV in 2025

Westwood has been nowhere near his best this season.

In fact, he only has one top-10 finish on LIV to his name aside from this season – a T-3 at LIV Nashville in 2024.

Here is how his numbers look from the 2025 season so far:

Westwood will be determined to finish this season strongly on LIV, but his main goal will be to compete at The Open Championship next week.

What the future has in store for LIV and the PGA Tour is very much up in the air right now though.