There is a hubbub in golfing circles at present, and there has been for many months now. It started when news of the rebel tour named LIV Golf leaked out, threatening the game’s status quo. It became louder when the first LIV Golf tournament was held at the Centurion Club near St. Albans, north of London. And it is in the air again now because this week marks the anniversary of LIV Golf’s inaugural event.
Two weeks after the PGA Championship in Rochester, New York, one week before the U.S. Open in Los Angeles and nearly 50 days before the Open gets underway at Royal Liverpool, people in golf in the U.K. are not talking about the two major championships that already have been held this year nor the upcoming ones. What they are talking about is LIV Golf in general and the Ryder Cup in particular.
On consecutive days last week, I played golf at two different golf clubs in England, with two different groups of people. On the course and in the clubhouse over drinks afterwards LIV Golf was the dominant subject of conversation.
“What do you think of LIV and what it is doing to golf?” I asked Alan, my golfing partner, as we played a game last Monday.
He had just hit a long, low drive that bounded down the second fairway and stopped just short of the semi-rough. “I dislike it,” he said as he put the headcover back on his driver. “It is divisive. It is ruining the game. It’s all about money.”
“What would you do if you were in your mid-20s or early 30s and were offered tens of millions of dollars to join another organisation? In other words, you were in a situation like Cameron Smith, the Open champion, or Harold Varner III?”
“I’d take it, of course,” he replied without a moment’s hesitation. “Of course, I would. It would set me up for life. I would owe it to my family.”
This is the nub of the current discussion. I know hardly anyone who is in favour of it. It has created a civil war in golf, a game hitherto known for politeness and fair play. Yet when pressed, those critics of LIV and its Saudi backers say they too would have taken the money had it been offered to them at that stage of life.
Lee Westwood, one of the first players to sign with LIV, was asked whether LIV Golf had been good or bad for the game. “I think it has been great for golf,” he replied during an interview about the forthcoming International Series England event, which is part of the LIV Golf-affiliated Asian Tour, to be held at Close House, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in August. “It has shaken things up. It is a great alternative to 72-hole tournaments week in and week out. I think there’s too many of those. I think it makes a nice change for people to watch something different.”
Little credence is given to LIV’s avowed aim to grow the game, which was one of the points that Greg Norman, LIV Golf’s chief executive, stressed at the Centurion Club last year when he said: “I see this as an opportunity for golf … you can look at every interview I’ve done with you since 1982 … I’ve been 100 percent consistent: global golf, global golf, global golf. Grow the game of golf globally.”
At least Varner had the grace to tell the truth. He did it for the money, and if money is the sole judge, then he has done rather well. He is alleged to have received $15 million to join LIV. By winning the recent LIV tournament in near Washington, he earned $4 million and his share of $500,000 to be split with his third-place RangeGoats teammates of Bubba Watson, Talor Gooch and Wade Ormsby.
“My life is changing,” Varner said after the victory. He can say that again. When it was revealed that he had joined LIV Golf, he said: “The opportunity to join … is simply too good of a financial breakthrough for me to pass by. I know what it meant to grow up without much. The money is going to ensure that my kid and future Varners have a solid base to start on – and a life I could only have dreamt about growing up.”
There is no doubt the sentimental vote would be for LIV players to participate in order to maintain the extraordinary interest and financial success of the Ryder Cup. Sometimes the best sentiments do not win the day, though.
If this were simply a discussion as to whether golfers should take a huge sum of money from a country with a shocking human-rights record and join a breakaway tour, that would be easy enough to answer.
But it isn’t. Two other issues are causing concern and discussion: whether LIV tournaments should have Official World Golf Ranking points and whether LIV golfers could or should play in the Ryder Cup, one of sport’s biggest events, never mind golf’s, in Rome in September.
At present, world-ranking points are not awarded to LIV events, so unless a LIV golfer can win points in the major championships, all of which allowed or will allow them to compete this year, their points will diminish. And that means their chances of getting into future major championships are diminishing.
“Right now, they (LIV) don’t look like getting them (world-ranking points),” Westwood said, “and if I am being completely honest, if it were down to me, I would pull out my application for world-ranking points. The guys have proved they can contend in major championships, which is why they are trying to get world-ranking points – to get plugged into those. I think the majors see this. They see those four tournaments should have the strongest fields, and without LIV players they won’t get the strongest field, and eventually I think they will give exemptions to LIV players.”
Whether LIV golfers could or should appear in the Ryder Cup also is causing considerable debate. The PGA of America organises the Ryder Cup, and CEO Seth Waugh has said that LIV players will appear in that competition even though the players, along with belonging to the PGA of America also belong to the PGA Tour, which is vehemently against LIV. This means that Brooks Koepka, the LIV player who won last month’s PGA Championship at Oak Hill and finished tied for second in the Masters in April, might make a fourth Ryder Cup appearance for the U.S. team.
“I think Brooks deserves to be on the U.S. team. He is second in the U.S. standings, having only played two counting events,” Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy said on the eve of last week’s Memorial Tournament before continuing rather confusingly and without explanation: “But I have different feelings about the European team and the other side and sort of how that has all transpired. I don’t think any of those guys should be part of the European team.”
Sergio García, among others, has resigned his membership of the DP World Tour and is therefore ineligible to represent Europe in the Ryder Cup. This concerns Jon Rahm, the Masters champion, because he and his fellow Spaniard were unbeaten in their three matches at the 2021 Ryder Cup.
“I am going to miss him,” Rahm said. “We had a great partnership at Whistling Straits. It’s a little sad to me that politics have gotten in the way of such a beautiful event. It’s the best Europeans against the best Americans, period. And whatever is going on, who is playing LIV and who is not playing LIV, shouldn’t matter. It’s whoever is best suited to represent the European side.”
Talks are going on between the PGA Tour in the U.S., the PGA of America, the PGA of Europe and DP World Tour. There is no doubt the sentimental vote would be for LIV players to participate in order to maintain the extraordinary interest and financial success of the Ryder Cup. Sometimes the best sentiments do not win the day, though. For the moment, the hubbub continues.
E-MAIL JOHN
TOP PHOTO: Chris Trotman, LIV Golf via Getty Images