(Opinion) The last time I ventured out on a golf course was with friends in Trancoso years ago.
And I didn’t do at all well, especially when on the beautiful hole you are forced to hit over a slice of the Atlantic Ocean; a few of my shots fell into it instead.
So, watching pro tournaments on television had become my only golfing excitement until recently.
My entry into the sports world coincided with the shock announcement of a secret alliance between the long-standing professional golf authority, PGA, and the Saudi-funded newcomers, LIV Golf and the DP World Tour.
This unexpected union was further amplified by the fact that LIV Golf and the DP World Tour had successfully enticed some of the biggest names in golf to defect and join their tour last year, thanks to their generous financial incentives.
It’s perplexing how two fierce rivals, embroiled in multiple lawsuits and under scrutiny for monopoly concerns by the US government, could suddenly dispel their competition and form a monopolistic alliance.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding the specifics of their agreement, these former adversaries have surprisingly become partners, raising questions about the sudden elimination of their sole competition.
Not everyone is celebrating the union.
Before the deal with the Saudis was done, players had to decide whether to stay with the PGA and play for its generous but not excessive prize money that incidentally leaves those at the bottom of the Leader Board with nothing at all.
Or do you abscond for a contract with the Saudis worth perhaps some of the US$800 million reported to have been offered but refused by golf legend Tiger Woods or the US$100 million needed to get Brooks Koepka into the fold?
LIV paid most of its players more money upfront than they received over their entire PGA career.
It must have been harder for lower ranked players than Tiger Woods to step back from that gusher of guaranteed Saudi money in the name of political purity.
Phil Mickelson, for example, whose career earnings have been around US$94 million with the PGA made US$200 million just to join LIV.
The way LIV is set up, even the players ranked among the bottom are going home with at least some money, leading many of these to now look on tournament play as a few nice rounds of golf and not to care where they placed in tournaments.
Accepting the Saudi offer must have been more difficult in the shadow of the Saudi human rights abuses and the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 on orders, said the CIA, of Prince Mohammed bin Salman (M.B.S.), which made Saudi Arabia a global pariah.
Asks Nicholas Kristof in an opinion piece in the NY Times: “How do we say we’re confronting Putin in Ukraine because we believe in the rule of law when Biden exchanges fist bumps with a Saudi ruler who also invades a neighbor and governs even more tyrannically at home, without even the fig leaf of sham national elections?”
It was Jay Monahan, commissioner of the PGA Tour who very publicly defended his turf, the same man who loathed and trashed the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour, threatening PGA players who might be interested in joining with permanent expulsion from PGA tournaments.
He regularly referenced how Saudi citizens had caused 9/11 and how no one had ever had to be embarrassed wearing the PGA mantel as they would be under the Saudis.
Then with extreme secrecy, even from all but two of the members of his Board, he struck a deal with the benefactor of LIV, a deal that includes the permanent cessation of all their expensive legal actions.
Let’s accept that the Saudi Arabian partner has a Public Investment Fund, (P.I.F.) with more than US$700 billion at its disposal and a desire to buy an equal seat at the table of big global players.
Running that fund under its chairman, M.B.S is Yasir al-Rumayya who will become chairman of the as yet unnamed new entity.
What better way to help whitewash the Saudi’s continued human rights violations and the Khashoggi murder than to launder the kingdom’s reputation with sports ownership or ‘sportswashing’ as its critics have named it.
Part of that involves building the P.I.F. as a diversifying vehicle for growing global capital, financially and culturally, an ambitious makeover for Saudi Arabia and its reputation.
Yet, as the ‘Economist’ notes, “Sport costs the P.I.F. relatively little. Yet it provides a lot of bang for the buck in the global market for attention.”
“They said it was about principles,” said Kurt Streeter in the ‘New York Times’, “but it was always about money. Human rights, it turns out, are a bore and obstacle. Sportswashing, as it is known, is powerful and effective.”
PGA’s cocky chief executive Jay Monahan will, at least for the moment, enjoy the same CEO post in the new for-profit partnership.
Tax records obtained by ProPublica show that he was paid US$14 million in salary in 2021. His 2022 pay was more. No wonder players complained about their share of the pie.
It will now be increased by US$7.5 million thanks to the generous Saudis, enough one would think to soften the shame he must feel for charges of gross hypocrisy and worse being thrown at him by unhappy players and fans.
I’m afraid it is true, money corrupts, lots of money corrupts mightily.
“Tell me why Jay Monahan basically got a promotion to CEO of all golf in the world by going back on everything he said the past 2 years,” US golfer Dylan Wu said.
“The hypocrisy. I guess money always wins.”
Sadly, perhaps it does.
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