‘You’re full of s***!’ LIV star blasts fellow defectors
Harold Varner III has launched a damning attack on his fellow LIV Golf colleagues who don’t attribute money as the reason for joining the rebel tour.
Speaking to the Washington Post, Varner spoke in a typically honest fashion about his decision to join LIV, which rewarded his family with simply too good of a “financial breakthrough”.
Many other players on the Saudi-financed series have talked up the prospect of playing team golf and “growing the game”, but Varner said “they’re full of s***”.
In his expletive-laden rant, he added: “They’re growing their pockets. I tell them all the time, all of them – ‘You didn’t come here to f****** grow the f****** game!'”
After marrying wife Amanda in 2020, the 32-year-old began to suffer from a degenerative nerve condition in his right foot and realised a lengthy career in golf wasn’t guaranteed.
Varner two career victories have come at the 2016 Australian PGA Championship on the European Tour and last year’s Saudi International, by then an Asian Tour event, and the American has made more than $10 million on the PGA Tour before defecting to LIV, who offered him $15 million to put pen to paper.
“I’m always going to be good because I can go work in a f****** steel fab place and figure it out,” Varner added. “But, like, with a kid, I can’t guarantee what I was making at the time, if I died the next day, Amanda would be good forever.
“And isn’t that why we work? I don’t work to say I love what I do. That’s bulls***. That’s always been bulls*** to me. You want your kid to have a f****** chance.
“That’s what I try to tell the LIV guys. You only make it worse if you keep talking.”
A solid base for his family is what Varner wants and this is what he outlined on social media last August in his parting message to the PGA Tour.
He revealed LIV sent him some “public relations apparatus” to explain his decision to leave the Tour, but he ignored this and spoke his mind.
Varner is playing in the Masters at Augusta National, but his future eligibility in major championships is in question with currently no access to Official World Golf Ranking points.
But he knows this and seems to have no intent on playing on other tours to subsidise his schedule, which is what players such as Brooks Koepka and Sergio Garcia have used the Asian Tour for.
“If you said I can’t play in the majors, I’d be fine,” he said. “I’ve accepted that. I was cool with it. But some of these motherf*****s, they want their cake and to eat it, too.
“Like, dude, you knew it was going to be bad – like going against the f****** US government! Good luck, man.”
“My job is to make people have the opportunity to do the things they want to do in life. In 10 years, you ain’t going to f****** know who won this f****** tournament.
“I can’t tell you who won Augusta last year. So you know what they’re going to remember? They’re going to remember how you helped someone, how you made someone feel.”
Matt Chivers
Now on the wrong side of 25, Matt has been playing golf since the age of 13 and was largely inspired to take up the game by countless family members who played golf during his childhood.
Matt is a member at Royal Cinque Ports in Deal playing off a 5 handicap, just a pitching wedge away from his hometown of Dover where he went to school and grew up. He has previously been a member at Etchinghill and Walmer and Kingsdown in Kent.
Having studied history at the University of Liverpool, Matt went on to pass his NCTJ Exams in Manchester a year later to fulfil his lifelong ambition of becoming a journalist. He picked up work experience along the way at places such as the Racing Post, the Independent, Sportsbeat and the Lancashire Evening Post.
Matt joined NCG in February 2023 and is the website’s main source of tour news, features and opinion. He has reported live from events such as The Open, the Ryder Cup and The Players Championship, having also interviewed and spent time with some of the biggest names in the sport.
Consuming tour golf on what is a 24/7 basis, you can come to Matt for informed views on the game and the latest updates on the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, LPGA Tour, Ladies European Tour and LIV Golf.
What’s in Matt’s bag: Cobra LTDx LS driver, Cobra LTDx 3-wood, TaylorMade P7MC irons, Ping Glide 4.0 wedges, Odyssey putter.
