Padraig Harrington has revealed how he turned down an approach from LIV Golf earlier this season, and how he also refused to join a player's LIV Golf team recently because he wanted to be "the captain" and "the best player".
Harrington made his comments about the controversial Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour during a recent interview with Ann Liguori on The First Call.
"I have been approached. I got the general stuff.
"To be honest, I didn't negotiate because I didn't want to be tempted.
"Unfortunately, you put figures on the table... I didn't want to know my price either."
The three-time major champion then told Liguori how he had been approached by a current LIV Golf player to come and join his team.
Only Harrington refused because he wanted to be the star of the show.
"A [LIV Golf] player came up to me and said 'why don't you join my team?'
"I looked at him and said 'I'd just about let you play on my team, I ain't playing for your team.
"As in I have in my own head, I know where I stand in world golf, I can't go in and play under somebody else.
"It wasn't an Irish player who said it to me, it wasn't G-Mac [Graeme McDowell] or anything. It wasn't a formal offer, it was a joking offer, but I looked at him and said 'No, I'm the captain.'
"That's an issue and that's why I couldn't go. I can't go, in my head, I'm the leader, I'm the guy who won the majors, I'm the best player. Look, it doesn't matter if I'm not the best player, I believe I am and I have to keep telling myself.
"I don't want to sign up to be number four in the team. That's just the way it is. There's many reasons why you could be in the LIV tournament."
Harrington then touched on why he considered four-time major champion Brooks Koepka's LIV Golf U-turn to be no surprise at all during the US Open early this season, and why it would be no shock to see even more of the world's best players join Greg Norman's circuit in 2023.
"There was a lot of criticism that week [of the US Open] and he [Koepka] came out and said 'they made an offer on the Monday that changed my mind'.
"They [LIV Golf] have the power and ability when it comes to actually moving the needle with players.
"A player could be sitting there fully committed to not going and then all of a sudden, what if they turned around to every major winner and said whatever you were worth before winning that major we are going to put $100 millon on top of that if you join.
"That has to turn heads."
GolfMagic understands that at least four of the world's top 50 players are set to move to LIV Golf in 2023.
Earlier this season, Harrington told the media that LIV Golf players had "made their bed and now they have to lie in it".
LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE
