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US golfer Brendan Steele is the latest player to defect from the PGA Tour to join the controversial LIV Golf series. He, along with Danny Lee and Thomas Pieters, has jumped ships ahead of the 2023 season of the Saudi-backed league.
Interestingly, according to Palm Spring Desert Sun, Branden Steele had told reporters just 10 weeks prior that he was not interested in joining LIV Golf. Also, at that point, he wasn't even offered to join the league.
According to the Desert Sun, he had said in a December conference call:
"I have not been approached. I think the way that it has mostly worked is that guys have gone and sought them out and told them they are interested … So it hasn’t really been any sort of a problem for me. But I don’t hold it against guys for doing it."
Well, it has been quite a plot twist for the 39-year-old amidst the most heated civil war that golf has ever seen.
"We play a sport where it is very fickle," - Brendan Steele, previously on the LIV Golf players
According to the Desert Sun, Brendan Steele said that the players who had left the PGA Tour for LIV Golf shouldn't expect to return. He also believed there were different viewpoints concerning the various options the golfers now faced.
He said, according to The Desert Sun:
"We play a sport where it is very fickle and you have no contracts as far as signing with the Dodgers for five years and if you get hurt, you get paid. We don’t have any of that stuff. So to have a little bit of security in going over there, I think you can kind of understand the narrative for each guy who went."
He further added that there were different reasons for defecting to LIV Golf.
"Some want security financially. Some are older, some are guys who are more injured. Some guys haven’t been playing as well but have a big name. There are all sorts of reasons why you would want to do it."
The season-opening event of LIV Golf will kickstart next week at Mayakoba's El Camaleón Golf Course in Mexico.
