A dramatic week for professional golf concluded with former Masters champion Charl Schwartzel pocketing $4.75m (£3.86m) with a one-stroke victory at the inaugural LIV Golf Invitational event in Hertfordshire.
In three days at the Centurion Club, the 37-year-old from Johannesburg, who won at Augusta in 2011, picked up a sum equal to the amount it has taken him the last four years to earn on the PGA Tour.
But the golf was a relative sideshow compared with the seismic impact this start up series has had on the game this week.
“All I can say is that the evolution of golf has arrived,” LIV Golf chief executive Greg Norman stated at the presentation ceremony.
“For 27 years there have been a lot of obstacles put in our path, a lot of dreams have tried to be squashed but they couldn’t squash us,” added the former world number one, who first tried to set up a world tour in the mid 1990s.
After accepting the trophy, Schwartzel who picked up an additional $750,000 for being part of the winning team, said: “Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think we could play for that much money in golf.
“As you could see I was taking a bit of heat down the stretch and there was a lot of money involved.”
Patrick Reed
Meanwhile, the 2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed has joined the LIV series
LIV Golf chose the final day to announce that two more Americans have joined their cast list.
As Schwartzel was grinding his way to the $4m individual jackpot, LIV revealed 2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed and 46-year-old world number 168 Pat Perez as its latest recruits.
Reed is a nine-times winner on the PGA Tour and currently ranked 36 in the world after only one top 10 finish this year. He will make his LIV debut at Pumpkin Ridge next month.
“I’m super excited,” Reed told the streamed coverage of the final day. “Being part of the evolution and change in golf is unbelievable.”
The 31-year-old Texan added: “Portland can’t get here soon enough. I can’t wait, it is going to be a blast.”
Men’s professional golf has never endured a more controversial week.
On Thursday, 17 players were suspended indefinitely by the PGA Tour for taking part. Reed, Perez and Friday’s recruit Bryson DeChambeau face a similar fate.
But following an uncomfortable start for several players, when the issue of Saudi Arabian sportswashing dominated the agenda, the upstart project has gathered momentum.
The staging of the event was first class with an impressive spectator village and no expense was spared in streamed coverage that benefited from an absence of ad breaks.
As the tournament reached its climax with Schwartzel bogeying the last for a closing 72 that left him seven-under-par and one clear of South African compatriot Hennie Du Plessis there were around 100,000 viewers on YouTube.
BBC Sport
