“PGA Tour has been the best place to play” - Rickie Fowler backs PGA amid pressure from LIV Golf

Rickie Fowler has been linked to LIV Golf for a while now. The PGA Tour golfer was rumored to follow Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, and Bryson DeChambeau, among others, to join the Saudi-backed series. Amid the speculations, Fowler has now dubbed the Tour the “best place to play” golf.

He also claimed that the PGA Tour remains the best despite the emergence of LIV Golf. However, the American golfer wasn’t completely in dismissal of LIV. Talking about the rebel series, he noted that the PGA needs to keep evolving to match its new rival.

Rickie Fowler was speaking about the state of professional golf on "The Rick Shiels Golf Show," when he said:

“It’s very interesting. I think ultimately, it’s going to end up in a better position for the players, hopefully for everyone in the whole game of golf. I’ve enjoyed kind of learning more about the ins and outs of the PGA Tour as well as LIV.”

He further went on to detail the stance of the two tours and said:

“I’d say it is kind of unfortunate that something like LIV had to come to fruition to make the Tour get up off their chair and, you know, do something.

“I’ve always believed that the PGA Tour has been the best place to play. It currently is and a lot of us want to see it continue to be that. But, yeah, you can’t really just stay the same and expect to be the best.”

The PGA Tour has introduced a series of changes to its structure to combat LIV Golf. Fowler acknowledged the same while speaking about the differences between the two tours.

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Rickie Fowler on criticism faced by LIV Golf

Interestingly, Rickie Fowler also raised concerns over the criticism of LIV. Taking a neutral stance on the matter, Fowler stated that “no one’s perfect.” Commenting on the criticism faced by the Saudi-backed series, he said:

“You can go into a lot of it, but imagine if LIV was backed by, like, Apple or Amazon, because I also don’t necessarily like that the, kind of... the one stance just going after the moral issue and being associated or with Saudi. It’s like no one’s perfect, no one’s clean.”

It is pertinent to note that Rickie Fowler had earlier slammed the PGA Tour over its handling of the LIV Golf saga. The golfer stated that the American tour wasn’t proactive enough and said that the officials wasted their opportunity for talks between the two sides.

Fowler said:

“I think the meeting should have taken place four or five years ago when this all kind of came about. That was the tour’s first mistake, was not meeting.

“Whether you agree or not at least having heard the info or gotten the info for yourself and going from there, I think maybe we'd be in a little different position than we are today.”

Meanwhile, Fowler is yet to fully commit to the PGA Tour. Earlier this year, he admitted that he was considering LIV Golf as an alternate option. The golfer is yet to confirm his stance on the LIV-PGA fight.

As of now, Rickie Fowler is a PGA Tour player.