It feels as if everything changes Thursday morning when someone – maybe it’s Ian Poulter or Sam Horsfield or Phachara Khongwatmai – sticks a peg into the turf north of London and slaps the LIV Golf Invitational Series into existence.
That comes the morning after the first LIV Golf draft party, which is described in a player handbook as, “a casual red carpet event with a touch of LIV audacity.”
We should expect nothing less.
It sounds like a place where troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops.
Historians – or anyone with a smartphone – may look back at June 9, 2022, as the day when professional golf spun off its axis and into a strange new world where Saudi money makes it rain on 48 players while others such as Rickie Fowler watch and wonder what to do next.
Maybe this is the end of the golf world as we know it.
Hopefully not.
For sure, what LIV Golf has created, even if its first tournament field is underwhelming, is divisive and threatening, pushing the game’s players and power brokers into a choice of playing offense or defense.
What LIV Golf’s leaders are attempting to do is reset the game’s pyramid, with them at the top.
Don’t forget the ethical questions of joining a league backed by a regime with one of the world’s worst human-rights records. It’s one of the players in this drama, even more than Lee Westwood or Sergio García.
For Dustin Johnson, the lure of a reported $125 million payday for five years of service (plus tournament winnings) was enough to persuade him to join the Saudi-backed group, having already developed a cozy relationship with them after winning their Saudi International twice.
D.J. was their whale, at least until Phil Mickelson decides to join, which remains unclear at the moment.
It’s possible that Mickelson will make his return to public life and professional golf this week in London, a late addition to the field providing the ultimate attention-grabbing twist.
Speaking of Mickelson, industry sources say he has been in talks with USGA officials about playing in the U.S. Open next week at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. A final decision has not been made, according to those sources.
As for whether LIV Golf members who have qualified for the U.S. Open will be allowed to play, it looks as if they will. The same goes for the Open Championship next month. To change their qualification requirements at this late date would smell of collusion, and when the LIV Golf-PGA Tour staredown arrives in court, the tour doesn’t want to defend itself against that, as well.
The tour would be wise to break from policy and announce suspensions once its members actually begin play in the London event. They were denied releases, and commissioner Jay Monahan has been clear about his intention to discipline those players, reiterating that message in a meeting with managers Wednesday at the Memorial.
Make it public, because this has become a public fight.
Monahan, it’s worth noting, had been assured by Johnson that he was staying with the PGA Tour, and the news of his defection reportedly caught the commissioner off guard last Sunday morning.
While he has the expressed allegiance of Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Brooks Koepka and Jack Nicklaus, among others, Monahan understands the gravity of the moment.
The tour is serious about this. When Darren Clarke was approached about doing television work for LIV Golf, the tour said it would be the end of his PGA Tour Champions career. Clarke decided to continue playing golf instead of working for Greg Norman’s group.
For players, it’s uncertain whether suspensions will be short-term or long-term. A slap on the wrist would make the tour look weak.
PGA Tour members joining or interested in LIV Golf seem to have three options:
Resign from the tour (as Kevin Na announced he was doing on social media Saturday); roll the dice and face the discipline; or challenge the tour in court.
Equipment companies are expected to evaluate each case on an individual basis. Dustin Johnson has been one of TaylorMade’s front men since he joined the tour in 2008. Does the company want to be front and center in the LIV Golf series?
A splintering at the game’s highest level won’t be good for anyone. It’s already divided enough between the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the Asian Tour, but there is an established hierarchy.
What LIV Golf’s leaders are attempting to do is reset the game’s pyramid, with them at the top. They don’t put it quite that boldly, suggesting they want to be additive to the current structure, but why invest $2 billion into something with the goal of being second-best?
Professional tennis and Indy car racing can attest to the damage done when two groups divide the most valuable assets. More becomes less. Meaning is lost. Fans are, too.
If there is a problem with professional golf, it’s not that there isn’t enough of it. It’s that there is too much of it.
The PGA Tour isn’t perfect. It can be heavy-handed and autocratic, but it’s the best organization in the world for what it does. It is generous (to be fair, LIV Golf is making substantial charitable contributions, including a $100 million commitment toward corporate social-responsibility initiatives), and it is why professional golf is where it is today.
Tour events come with more than a paycheck.
“I understand different viewpoints, but I believe in legacies,” Tiger Woods said at the PGA Championship.
That may be what’s at stake here.
Top: Kevin Na pre-emptively resigns his membership with the PGA Tour to pursue LIV Golf opportunity.
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