In the middle of the afternoon yesterday, you may have heard a loud thud. Presumably, it was the sound of jaws hitting the floor around the golfing world as all and sundry were rendered utterly flabbergasted by the news that the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and Saudi-backed LIV Golf will merge together in the most unlikely alliance since beauty took up with the beast.
Donald Trump, who staged a LIV event at his Doral resort recently, roared that it was a “big, beautiful and glamourous deal for the wonderful world of golf.” He would though, wouldn’t he? Others will take some convincing.
Almost a year to the day since the rebel LIV series staged its first event at the Centurion Club near St Albans, the bitter civil war that has consumed the men’s professional game at the highest level is over. LIV golf defectors will now have a route back to the traditional tours they were ostracised from as well as the Ryder Cup.
Division, defections, disruption, distractions, rancour, moralising, legal processes, fines, suspensions, petty squabbling? You name it, the game has been mired in it over the past few months. Now, we have a quite staggering truce that was laid out in a press release that was so out of the blue, even the blue itself was caught on the hop.
“The PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) today announced a landmark agreement to unify the game of golf, on a global basis,” said the statement which also declared an end to all pending litigation between the warring factions. “The parties have signed an agreement that combines PIF’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights [including LIV Golf] with the commercial businesses and rights of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity to ensure that all stakeholders benefit from a model that delivers maximum excitement and competition among the game’s best players.”
The unveiling of this tripartite coalition took everybody by surprise. Even high-profile players were rushing to social media to say that they had just found out about the seismic activity on the fevered jungle drum that is Twitter. Maintaining such a tight shroud of secrecy is no mean feat in an age when it is nigh on impossible to keep anything under wraps. “I got a text saying we should write a book on the art of confidentiality,” said the DP World Tour chief executive, Keith Pelley, last night.
It all seemed very clandestine yet, by various accounts, the peace brokering was all very civilised too. According to the Financial Times, the deal was done over meals in Venice and rounds of golf in London. Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, said that he began to trust Yasir-al-Rumayyan, the head of Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, “10 minutes after sitting down with him in Venice.” The starter must have been nice.
"I applaud Yasir Al-Rumayyan for his vision and collaborative and forward-thinking approach that is not just a solution to the rift in our game, but also a commitment to taking it to new heights,” said Monahan. “This will engender a new era in global golf, for the better."
Monahan’s volte face was quite something as he backed out of his anti-LIV stance with about as much elegance as a man reversing his car into the entire peloton of the Tour de France. Monahan had once used the victims of the 9/11 outrage to effectively shame those American players who had jumped on board the Saudi-bankrolled gravy train. Now, he is hailing a union with the Saudis as a “momentous day”. The moral high ground can be a slippery old perch.
For the staunch tour loyalists such as Rory McIlroy, who became the public face of the establishment as he opposed LIV with robust yet ultimately draining vehemence, the feeling is that he, and others, have been flung under the bus by Monahan.
From splintering golf’s traditional ecosystem, the Saudis, who backed an event on the DP World Tour as recently as 2021, have, effectively, bought their way back into it and LIV gets the access and legitimacy it has craved.
For all the cries about a brutal regime sportswashing their atrocities, this latest development is another milestone in Saudi’s unrelenting advance on sport. From football to formula one and boxing, money, regardless of where it comes from, talks.
Interestingly, the details of this golfing merger, which is still a framework agreement and will require a heck of a lot of ironing out over the weeks and months ahead, made no mention of Greg Norman, the combative CEO of LIV.
McIlroy once witheringly suggested that Norman would have to step down to allow the “adults” to work on a peace settlement. Apparently, Norman was taken by surprise just like everybody else.
Golf’s war is over but the questions and the controversy will continue to rage.
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