EXCLUSIVE: Shipnuck wonders if the car crash that killed Tiger Woods was an accident.
In an exclusive interview about his new book, “LIV and Let Die,” author Alan Shipnuck discusses Tiger Woods’ car crash, the future of golf on the tour, player greed, his feud with Justin Thomas and more.
Alan Shipnack breathed a sigh of relief when he turned in the final version of his latest book, “LIV And Let Die,” on June 5. In just a few months, he has managed to change the global narrative surrounding the war between the Saudi-backed LIV Golf and the PGA Tour.
The famous sports writer spent a rest day at a spa, and then the celebration family cuisine and the first start of the night continued.However, at 5:00 am on June 6, he woke up to the flow during the electronic pint and prepared a laptop. Bleary-eyed he read a couple of the messages, which jolted him awake and had him scrambling for the television remote.
As the screen came alive, he was greeted by the sight of PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan sitting alongside Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which bankrolls LIV Golf, announcing plans to merge golf’s tours. “My mortal enemies were sitting side by side on TV making this bombshell statement. It was so strange and disorienting,” Shipnack said in a charming Zoom call.
“This wasn’t potential news or something we knew could happen. It was done and this is the first we’ve heard about it,” he said. “It was an incredible turnaround.”Over the next few weeks, the bestselling author added nearly 15,000 words to the back of the book before making substantial changes to his original manuscript.
From Greg Norman’s disastrous attempts to stage a round-the-world trip (note the great white shark fin in the lake on the book’s excellent cover art) to the failure of the Premier Golf League, the controversial history of Saudi Arabia and the bitter feud between some of golf’s biggest names, the book leaves no stone unturned in explaining how men’s professional golf reached this unthinkable point and outlines the only possible solutions to end the conflict.
