Thought for the Day
Funny things that happen to other people can be tragedies when they happen to you
Saudi Rules
Ever since the shock announcement a few weeks ago that LIV Golf had negotiated a truce with the PGA and DP World Tours, things have gone ominously quiet. Virtually no details of this new partnership have emerged, which of course means that we are all free to speculate on what the future might hold.
First, however, we need to examine a few of the things we do know. First, when details were revealed there was a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth from PGA Tour players who had, like the rest of us, been kept in the dark, but seriously, what else did they expect? When you enter in negotiations like this, the outcome of which you have no way of predicting, and which you know will be controversial, there is little choice but to keep them secret.
Second, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan acknowledges that he will be regarded as a hypocrite for joining ranks with an organisation that he has previously said he wouldn’t touch with a bargepole. His condemnation of Saudi Arabia was emphatic, vitriolic and apparently reflected a deeply held distaste for a country whose human rights record, shall we say, leaves something to be desired. But in the cold light of day on the morning after, what other choice did he have?
The Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi is worth an estimated $85 billion and Monahan could see that his tour was bankrupting itself in its efforts to compete. In fact, there isn’t a sporting organisation in the world that could match the PIF in spending power – not the Premier League of football, FIFA or the USA’s basketball or American football leagues. Monahan knew that the approximate $2 billion already invested in setting up and running LIV Golf was but a drop in the ocean compared to what could be spent, so pragmatism won out over morality. Which is exactly what happened to all the golfers who were willing to accept Saudi money in order to jump ship to LIV Golf in the first place.
The biggest of the charges laid against Monahan was that, in his condemnation of Saudi Arabia, he specifically talked about the families and friends of those near 3,000 people killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon. As has been subsequently pointed out, moral outrage and empathetic concern for people devastated by such a tragedy is difficult to turn on and off.
Monahan has now retreated from the fray as he recovers from ‘a medical situation’ according to a joint statement issued by him and the PGA Tour Policy Board. When I heard this, I was reminded of a situation several years ago when a pro golfer who was playing particularly badly, withdrew from an event citing an injury. A fellow competitor remarked: ‘Yes, a run of double bogeys is the leading cause of injury on tour.’ It was a jaundiced view but there are occasions when the heat is so intense that the wisest course of action is to strategically retreat until the dust settles.
Little is yet known about the new partnership except that all litigation (which had already run into millions of dollars) will end with immediate effect; that a ‘fair and objective process’ will be established to allow LIV golfers to return to the PGA and DP World Tours in 2024 and that a board of directors will be set up, a majority of whom will be from the PGA Tour. The chairman, however, will be the governor of PIF, Yasir Al-Rumayyan.
The biggest losers in all this would seem to include Greg Norman, the chief executive of LIV Golf who has been an outspoken critic of the PGA Tour, and those golfers like Rory McIlroy, who stayed loyal to it. McIlroy himself has said that he feels like a sacrificial lamb for being allowed to defend his tour so often, becoming in the process a figurehead for the status quo. Norman’s position looks pretty untenable and it seems likely that he will be promoted to some senior executive position with PIF or quietly pensioned off.
Then there are the tour pros who, like McIlroy, turned down lucrative deals to defect, only to have their ethical stance now make them look like patsies. As for Monahan himself, it remains to be seen whether a few weeks or months cooling off period will allow PGA Tour pros to forgive him sufficiently to be professionally rehabilitated. Right now it looks touch and go.
Looking back on the last tumultuous 18 months in golf it is difficult not to be saddened by the harsh reality that in sport, as life, money talks and whoever has the largest amount will get their own way. As someone once said: It costs to have a conscience, and many of us aren’t prepared to pay the asking price.
Quote of the Week
Golf appeals to the idiot and the child in us. Just how childlike golfers become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five
John Updike