It was initially a few events, big boxing bouts, a Formula One Grand Prix. The next stage was buying clubs. Now it is a stake in a sport in its entirety. This is the new direction, writes OWEN SLOT.
He allowed himself to be the poster boy for the establishment, the PGA Tour and DP World Tour and, in effect, for the history of the game, as well as for the ethics of rejecting Saudi money and being a de facto ambassador for Saudi Arabia. Phil Mickelson, on the other hand, called the Saudi government “scary motherf***ers” yet took its money nevertheless, about dollars 200 million of it. So the big sports result yesterday (Tuesday) was that Mickelson was the winner. McIlroy captained the losing team. The extent to which he has been shafted by the PGA Tour is immeasurable. It dug in with him for a fight yet announced, out of the blue: sorry, but we have no stomach for it any more.
The history of these recent feuding years will show that most professional golfers tried to maintain the status quo. Each of them was persuaded to do so by two main drivers: loyalty to their original employers and the system that had made them wealthy and successful; and an ethical stance on Saudi Arabia and its human rights record.
Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson, respectively the losing and winning captains of golf’s civil war. Picture: Elsa/Getty Images
Each of them will have weighted their decision differently. However, their stance is now just a footnote. Whatever it was they believed in and wanted to stand for regarding Saudi ownership of their game is now an old conversation. The game of brinkmanship has finished. On we go.
There were many responding to the news of “peace in our time” as a good thing for golf. In the sense that all wars are bad, it was. The R&A released a statement saying that it was a “huge step forward” in “ensuring that the sport continues to thrive”. And it probably is.
Yet that is the point here: huge sighs of relief all round, the civil war is over, golf is happy again. So quickly did golf’s divide become more about the divide and less about the causes of it.
The Masters was only nine weeks ago and the impasse was in every story: would a LIV golfer win the Green Jacket? Would the LIV golfers then storm the green? And then the LIV golfers were so damned good that everyone went away from Augusta agreeing that this was too much. The divide was hurting the game. Golf was suffering.
By that point the narrative was almost completely about how golf needed mending and not about human rights in Saudi Arabia, its criminalisation of homosexuality, the still-growing number of beheadings or the murder of a journalist. Slowly all that was being washed away. That is sportswashing.
Jon Rahm’s battle with LIV golfer Brooks Koepka at the Masters was a reminder of what golf had lost in its civil war. Picture: Andrew Redington/Getty Images
Many people have a different stance on this. They point out that our government does business with Saudi Arabia, so why shouldn’t sport too? And other nations have their issues, so just leave the Saudis alone. And Saudi Arabia is most certainly improving – or modernising, or Europeanizing or whichever term you wish to use. It is nuanced.
The news, though, was the kind of sledgehammer blow of reality that wherever you stand it actually doesn’t hugely matter. You might be McIlroy and that didn’t matter in the end much either. This is the way sport is going. Whatever the size of the dam, the money is so plentiful it will wash it away.
On Monday, we were getting used to the news that Karim Benzema was leaving Real Madrid for a contract in the Saudi football league. Yesterday (Tuesday) morning we were still wondering if – or when? – Lionel Messi was going to follow. And then the Kingdom kind of got McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm and the rest of golf instead.
It is not a drip-drip of change now. It was initially a few events, big boxing bouts, a Formula One Grand Prix. The next stage was buying clubs. Now it is a stake in a sport in its entirety. This is the new direction. And the news is that Arab money wins. Golf tried to hold out; it didn’t really last long, did it?
Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema has left Real Madrid for Al-Ittihad. Picture: Al Ittihad Football Club/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
There was a deluge of confusion and a whopping absence of detail about the merger. We don’t know yet what future seasons or schedules will look like. We were just given the news with the kind of positive sheen you would expect: all sides are happy, we’re relieved it’s over, golf is the winner.
That may yet turn out to be the case. Golf may, at last, get a proper global tour. It may be amazing.
However, the bare facts are that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) attempted to do business with the PGA Tour and the PGA Tour rebuffed its offer. The PIF then set up its own rival LIV Golf enterprise. The PGA Tour then decided that it would do business with the PIF after all.
It turns out that the players – the McIlroys, the loyalists, the remainers – are rudderless and will finish up where the storm takes them.
You can reject the Saudi landing. You may not believe in it. You may have reservations about specific aspects of it. But that has already cost you a nine-figure dollar sum. In sport, be careful what you stand for.