Tiger Woods agent DUMPS new LIV Golf player: "Weirdest thing ever!"
Tiger Woods' agent Mark Steinberg has dropped Thomas Pieters following his move to LIV Golf.
Tiger Woods' agent Mark Steinberg has reportedly dumped Thomas Pieters from his management stable following the big-hitting Belgian's move to LIV Golf.
Steinberg, who is a partner at Excel Sports Management, has an impressive client roster of golfers including Woods, Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa.
He has managed Woods since 1998.
Pieters was announced as one of six new LIV Golf signings ahead of their first tournament of the new season in Mexico this week.
News of Pieters' dumping by Steinberg was first reported on Twitter by Alan Shipnuck, the man who revealed Phil Mickelson's controversial comments about Saudi Arabia and the PGA Tour last season.
Pieters did not even find out about Steinberg's decision from the agent himself.
It was passed on by someone else.
Steinberg now has zero player representation on LIV Golf.
Tour wars, cont’d: When Thomas Pieters arrived here in Mexico for his first LIV event he was informed that he had been dumped by his longtime agent Mark Steinberg, who had an underling deliver the news. “Weirdest thing ever,” Pieters told me. “He’s just gone.”
— Alan Shipnuck (@AlanShipnuck) February 24, 2023
Wait, did Steinberg take a cut of the signing bonus and *then* dump him?! “No,” Pieters said with a dark laugh. “If he did, I would have tweeted that myself.”
— Alan Shipnuck (@AlanShipnuck) February 24, 2023
Shipnuck tweeted:
Shipnuck added:
The decison to axe Pieters from Excel Sports Management falls a week after Pieters expressed his disappointment at being shunned an invite into Woods' own Genesis Invitational at Riviera.
Pieters tweeted:
Despite being ranked in the top 35 of the world rankings, Pieters was overlooked for a place in the field.
A few days later, he left for LIV Golf.
Perhaps Woods had caught of wind of it?
Pieters has insisted his decision to join the breakaway tour had nothing to do with his angry tweet over his PGA Tour snub.
Bookmakers had Pieters odds-on to make the European Ryder Cup team this year.
But that before his move to LIV Golf.
Apparently Pieters had been "courted by LIV Golf officials for months", according to a report in The Telegraph.
We will not know if LIV players can still be eligible for the Ryder Cup this year until we know the outcome of the DP World Tour v LIV Golf hearing.
It is said that Pieters accepted a seven-figure up-front fee to join LIV Golf.
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Andy first joined the brand on a month's work experience back in April 2011, and he now assumes the Editor role. When Andy joined GolfMagic it was a small site with potential.
