Thomas Detry has no ‘Plan B’ lined up and has faith in LIV Golf leadership to secure the tour’s future – saying he’s “committed here for the foreseeable future, I love it”.
The Belgian spoke to Garrett Johnston from Beyond The Clubhouse on behalf of Golf Monthly about the ongoing LIV Golf saga, but does not seem too concerned about the future.
Detry also has some beef with critics of LIV Golf, saying he’s received nothing but positive feedback from anyone who’s attended an event in person, and has turned off his social media due to negative comments about the team tour.
The 33-year-old says there’s a big difference between the on-course experience at LIV Golf events and the “outrageous comments on social media” which are “a bit weird really” and taken “completely out of context”.
“Listen, there’s been so much speculation at the start and sort of mid-season, especially on social media and obviously you can’t help yourself and read some of it,” Detry said about all the talk over LIV’s future this year.
“And you quickly find out that most of the stuff out there is actually lies and not true.”
Detry turned off social media, and now CEO Scott O’Neil has made an announcement over a possible investor he’s just focused on playing golf.
“So as a matter of fact I just turned off my social media, I’m not really on Instagram anymore pretty much,” he added.
“So I’m not really spending that much time out there and, you know, it’s human nature. I was a little bit worried at the start but now there’s something to be said. I’m just a great golfer, I know where I belong and whatever happens, happens.”
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And if LIV Golf doesn’t survive for some reason, Detry will cross that bridge when he comes to it, as he’s made no plans to play elsewhere – except for the DP World Tour after the end of the LIV season.
“To be really honest with you, I haven’t really thought about it too much,” he insisted. “Again I’ve got full trust in this process. The product is great. I love every single event. I’ve had so much fun.
“So I haven’t really thought about what’s for next year. I’m committed here for the foreseeable future, I love it. And I’ve got faith in everybody, I’ve got faith in the leadership as well. So I haven’t really thought too much about it.
“I just play day by day and I’m just committed to playing well this week, the next couple of weeks and then finish off the season on DP World Tour once the season is over here.”
Detry blasts LIV critics – challenges them to attend an event
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Detry hit out at the amount of reports about LIV Golf that go out on social platforms and in the media – saying a lot are based just on rumors – although O’Neil’s team have been criticized for a lack of clear communication to both the public and players in the past.
“The communication is what it is,” said Detry. “I mean it all gets blown out so quickly on social media.
“There was one little rumor being spread and every single media outlet just takes it out of context and promotes it, so it’s really tough to someone that doesn’t really understand the ecosystem out here to really understand really what’s happening.
“We’re here every single week and and we know how successful those tournaments are and we see everything running, we see how much players are enjoying it.
“So that’s where I think it’s tough for someone like me at least. You experience something on a golf course and then the next day you just go home and then you read some outrageous comments on social media which is a bit weird really, just completely out of context.
“To be honest, haven’t really been on social media the last couple of months, so I don’t know. But I’ll give you an example, after South Africa, it was such a fantastic event, I don’t know how anybody could have said anything negative about the event and you still manage to read some negative quotes out of it. So it’s pretty strange.”
Detry claims that everyone who attends a LIV event goes away happy, in contrast to the negative comments spread by people who haven’t had that tournament experience.
“I mean the number one thing that I tell to people who are sort of who’ve got opinions on it, first of all, everybody who sort of has a negative opinion on it has never been to an event,” said Detry.
“I have not met one person yet who’s been to a LIV event actually physically and has come out of it disappointed.
“All the people who’ve been to LIV events have really enjoyed it and and and say it’s fantastic. So listen, people are pretty stubborn, you know, it’s not always easy to make them change their their minds, but I’ll tell [them] to come and see for themselves and see if they enjoy it or not.”