LIV Golf joins a club that will have it as a member
They said it was about principles, but it was always about money.
Despite vows from the PGA Tour leaders that they would not allow their game to be tarnished, professional men’s golf is now under the spell of Saudi Arabia, a country engaged in a full-blown attempt to distract the public of the abuse of its citizens through the glitter, shine and global appeal of sport.
Human rights, it turns out, are annoying and an obstacle. “Sportswashing”, as it is called, is powerful and effective.
That’s the message between the lines of the merger between the once venerable PGA Tour and what until Tuesday was its insurgent competition – LIV Golf, born last year and fed by billions from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investment fund, which the oil-rich kingdom is using to gild its global image.
Profit is the most important. Above all. That’s the message.
It reigns over the morals, values and traditions that the PGA Tour, now shrouded in sheer hypocrisy, trumpeted during a seemingly fierce but apparently fake conflict that pitted the biggest names in golf against each other.
“It’s my job to protect, defend and celebrate the PGA Tour,” said Jay Monahan, the outfit’s commissioner, about a year ago, after announcing that every golfer who played for LIV would pass through his circuit. be banned. The tour simply could not associate with the nation known for its rights abuses and believed to be behind the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and the other golf stars who joined LIV were labeled defectors and pariahs. Human rights formed the solid moral foundation of the PGA Tour standings.
When asked about protests against the LIV tour by families of September 11 victims who were angry about the role Saudi Arabia allegedly played in those attacks, Monahan exorcised his empathy, saying, “My heart goes out to them.” He asked golfers who had left for LIV tournaments or took it as a rhetorical question, “Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”
Those comments now look like disinformation. The high-profile fight is over (unless the PGA Tour’s policy board, which has been kept in the dark, refuses to ratify the deal). With the merger, which also includes the DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour), professional men’s golf as we know it will be an artifact of history.
The governor of the Saudi investment fund, Yasir al-Rumayyan, will now become chairman of the board of directors of a global umbrella company that is so new it has not even been given a name.
The merger is about sports, yes, but also about power and values in the world.
In Saudi Arabia, citizens do not enjoy the right to free assembly. The justice system is not independent. A fair trial is a farce. To speak out against the government is to risk being imprisoned, tortured or killed.
When Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist, dared to speak out against the repressive state, he was lured to a Saudi consulate in Istanbul. A United Nations report describes how he was drugged and dismembered.
Who did it? According to the CIA, criminals are operating under orders from Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince who oversees everything in his kingdom, including the investment fund that will wield enormous influence over the golf world.
The United States has its own moral failings, numerous, and has since the founding of the nation. But we confront them publicly. We protest. We march. The press speaks out. We vote.
Many golfers and fans will block the seamy side of this story and look purely at the bright side. The new tour hopes to make golf more global, accessible, less futile and more exciting. The same golfers who were ostracized and banned from the regular PGA Tour by many of the sport’s star players upon leaving it – including Mickelson, the main renegade, and Koepka, recent winner of the major tournament, the PGA Championship – could return to the herd.
And indeed, none of that can be a bad thing for fans – or sponsors.
But to look only on the bright side is to approve of the hypocrisy.
This is as disruptive a move as the sports world has seen in a long time – perhaps ever. In an American context, the NFL and the American Football League joined forces in the 1960s. The NBA and the American Basketball Association joined in the 1970s. But at the time, those movements did not affect global sport, nor did they provide cover for oppressive nations.
This makes those mergers look like tiddlywinks.
Get used to a world where the Middle East, with its many authoritarian governments, is a dominant player in sports.
The organization of the 2022 Men’s World Cup in Qatar was an example of unseemly truths being scrubbed clean by a thrilling tournament seen around the world. The wave merger provides company for the organization of that event.
Major competitions in golf, tennis, auto racing and mixed martial arts, to name but four, have long been hosted by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The NBA plays exhibition games in the region.
The Saudis are barely done: they’re bidding for the 2030 World Cup and using their wealth to attract expensive talent to their national league. Cristiano Ronaldo now plays for Al-Nassr. On Tuesday, French striker Karim Benzema joined another Saudi team, Al-Ittihad, on a nine-figure contract. Lionel Messi – who already has a contract to promote tourism in the kingdom – could be next to sign up.
“We are interested in all sports,” al-Rumayyan said in a televised interview on Tuesday. Not just golf. Not just football or basketball. But “a lot of other sports,” he said.
It’s not hard to imagine the Saudis further involving the NBA, offering billions to buy NFL teams or even funding the sponsorship of college athletes. It’s also not hard to imagine the LPGA Tour coming up.
The PGA Tour presented itself as the man who awards himself a penalty if he accidentally moves his ball half an inch. Turns out it was the guy who makes a double bogey and notes it as a par.