Golf: ‘Life-changing decision’ - the phone call that convinced Danny Lee to join LIV Golf

Danny Lee with the trophy after winning the LIV Golf Invitational - Tucson. Photo / Getty

Kiwi golfer Danny Lee says he made the “life-changing decision” to join LIV Golf after a phone call from his good friend and current tour teammate Kevin Na.

Lee won his first tournament in almost eight years at the LIV Golf Tucson event on Monday, along with a massive US$4 million ($6.38m) payday - roughly as much as he made the last four seasons combined on the PGA Tour.

Speaking after his victory, Lee said the decision to jump ship to the controversial Saudi-funded tour - which features 48-man fields, no cuts, and both individual and team competition - wasn’t based on a big signing bonus like many of the tour’s other star signings, but because of the smaller schedule that suited his game and the draw of playing in a team environment.

“It was a life-changing decision,” he said. “To be honest, I wasn’t getting what everybody [was getting]. Like everybody is getting like $100 million, $50 million, $30 million. I wasn’t in that situation. Kevin just called me, ‘hey, do you want to come over and play for my team’.

“I thought about it, and I looked at the schedule. There’s three events I really like. Tucson wasn’t in my head, but Mayakoba, I always played well there, Greenbrier, I won there, and then Singapore, Sentosa, which we’re going to come back to, I have played well there before.”

Danny Lee with the trophy after winning the LIV Golf Invitational - Tucson. Photo / Getty

The 32-year-old, who had battled to keep his PGA Tour card for several years and last won a tournament in 2015, said the different environment at LIV Golf was a big draw.

“Kevin just told me that ‘I know you’re working hard’; he could see that my game is so close to being great, but he told me that this environment of LIV Golf is probably better for me than staying out on the PGA Tour.

“The reason he told me that was probably I tend to play too many weeks in a row, and... you can’t play great every single round. You’re going to have one bad round. On a fourth or fifth week in a row and when you have a really, really bad first round, sometimes it’s really mentally hard to grind it out for that second round to make the cut.

“That kind of stuff was a little different, but here you only have 14 events. You’ve got to make most of it, and I don’t want to let anybody down on my team.”

Lee took out the Tucson title in just his second start on the tour, thanks to a 25-foot birdie putt from off the 18th green to win in a four-man playoff that included Carlos Ortiz, Brendan Steele and Louis Oosthuizen.

He said winning again after so long felt “amazing”.

“It feels pretty amazing,” Lee said. “Last win I had was 2015 at Greenbrier. That was also a four-man playoff. Maybe it was a coincidence, I don’t know. But it feels pretty amazing right now.”

Asked if he was happier after his decision to move to LIV Golf, Lee said: “Well, yes, I am happy. I made probably the best decision to play on LIV Golf.

“I mean, it’s such a great tour out here. You get to play with one of the best in the world, and there’s a team aspect. It just teaches me how important is each shot out there because there’s a team involved. It doesn’t matter if you’re having a bad day or a good day. Every shot counts, if it was like -- you just want to get involved in a team event.

“It’s a little different than what I grew up playing in, but I love it out here. It’s awesome.”