Abraham Ancer infamously called out Tiger Woods at the 2019 Presidents Cup, but almost five years on the Mexican LIV Golf star has addressed the real meaning behind his comments
Abraham Ancer has admitted his call out to take on Tiger Woods at the 2019 Presidents Cup was taken out of context after the Mexican addressed his infamous clash with the 82-time PGA Tour winner.
Ancer represtened the International team in Australia in the 2019 edition of the matchplay event, and in the build-up was quizzed on which Team USA member he would like to take on in the Sunday singles. Highlighting the biggest name of all in Woods, he replied: “I would like to play against Tiger (Woods).
“But the truth is that our objective is to do everything we can to win. Winning a match in the singles would be very special, so we need to try to get the cup.”
Ancer’s comments quickly raised eyebrows, having appeared to call out arguably the greatest player of all time in Woods. The pair did in fact meet at Royal Melbourne, and it was the American who got the better of his Mexican rival, securing a dominant 3&2 victory.
In typical Woods fashion the 15-time champion had a brutal response for Ancer, commenting: “Abe wanted it, he got it,” in the aftermath. Almost five years on, the LIV Golf star addressed his on and off-course battle with Woods and was keen to point out that there was no cockiness involved.
“I get all these tweets, ‘Abraham Ancer wants Tiger’. That is what it said. I was like ‘well that is not what I said but whatever’,” he told LIV’s Fairway to Heaven podcast. “I got all of these people sending me texts saying ‘who do you think you are? challenging Tiger?’.
Abraham Ancer was beaten by Tiger Woods ( Image: Getty Images)
“All of that happens then Ernie [Els] throws my name out first, Tiger being a captain he then says ‘alright I’m going to go first’. I don’t know if he wanted to play against me or if he wanted to finish first and then go back to be a captain because he was a playing captain.
“Once that happened everything just resurfaced and the media blew it up… I honestly I was pretty upset because that was not what I meant. It would be amazing to play against my hero I don’t know who wouldn’t.” Opening up on the match itself, he added: “I think we both actually played pretty well. He did not miss. He made every single putt that he needed to make.”
Ancer had previously defended his comments in the aftermath of the event, claiming at the time: “When they asked me that at Mayakoba first of all, that question was in Spanish, so the tone when I said it, it was never like cocky or challenging or anything like that. At the moment I thought it would be a great experience, which it was. No matter what, with the outcome of the match, I would have gained a lot. I would have become a better player just from being in that situation.”
