Centurion - This week may just mark the dawn of a new era in professional golf, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.
The supercharged, swashbuckling and money-splurging LIV Golf Series began at Centurion Golf Club in London on Thursday. The series is funded by the Saudi Arabia-based Public Investment Fund (PIF). This is not a new organisation to the sports world. PIF owns the majority share of English Premier League club Newcastle, with the takeover of the team completed in October last year.
The format for the tournaments will be just three rounds (54 holes), with 48 players and no cut. There will be an individual event and a team event. The team event will be split into 12 groups of four golfers.
The season will feature eight events and will have a total prize of $255 million (R3.87 billion) on offer, with the final tournament being a match play team event according to seedings from the first seven events. Each regular season event will offer a first prize of $4m. Last place, or 48th position, will receive $120 000.
The LIV golf three-day event in London which ends today will have total prize money of $25m. For reference, this week’s Canadian Open on the PGA Tour will offer $8.7m.
From a South African perspective, the 2020/2021 Sunshine Tour Order of Merit winner Christiaan Bezuidenhout earned R7.7m. Last place in one LIV golf event (yes, just one!) therefore would have been good enough for fifth place on the season-long Order of Merit.
The PGA Tour has been against the LIV golf series from the start, and now imposes heavy sanctions on its players who choose to compete on the breakaway tour.
There have already been several shocking resignations of PGA Tour members like American Dustin Johnson (former world number one and two-time major champion), Spain’s Sergio Garcia (2017 Masters Champion), the SA trio of Louis Oosthuizen (2010 Open Champion), Charl Schwartzel (2011 Masters Champion) and Branden Grace who has six top-10 finishes in the majors and is a two-time PGA Tour event winner. Grace has also won nine times on the DP World Tour (DPWT) (formerly European Tour).
PGA Tour member and world number 33 Kevin Na of America has also resigned. More resignations from PGA Tour members will surely follow.
It’s here.
Don’t blink.#LIVGolf pic.twitter.com/eqJwbfAgrw
As for Oosthuizen, Grace and Schwartzel committing to LIV Golf, it’s worth looking at their career earnings. Schwartzel has earned $20 912 493 or R308m on the US PGA Tour and €17 672 195 or R291m on the DPWT. Oosthuizen has pocketed $28 124 759 (R432m) on the US PGA Tour and €19 334 034 (R313m) on the DPWT. Grace has made $12 223 147 (R188m) on the PGA Tour and €14 152 358 (R233m) on the DPWT.
But back to the green, with such big money on the table, surely the PGA Tour and DPWT could work together with the LIV Golf Series to come to some sort of compromise? The immediate answer is no, for now anyway. There is no way the PGA Tour, in particular, would be willing to work with LIV.
The PGA Tour prides itself as being steeped in tradition. The man single-handedly responsible for the golf boom in the last 25 years has said as much. Of course, I’m talking about Tiger Woods. He too was a target of LIV but could not be swayed. Then again, why would Woods – whose net worth is listed at $800m – go for more money when money is basically meaningless for him.
According to reports, Woods was offered “a mind-blowingly enormous (deal); we’re talking about high nine digits”. This offer could potentially double his net-worth, but that did not change his mind.
Still, Woods has made his stance with the PGA Tour clear during the PGA Championship: “I’ve been playing out here for a couple of years over decades, and I think there’s a legacy to it. I still think that the tour has so much to offer, so much opportunity.
“I understand different viewpoints, but I believe in legacies; I believe in major championships; I believe in big events, comparisons to historical figures of the past. There’s plenty of money out here.”
The Saudi regime is reprehensible with its human rights abuses, and the government’s alleged involvement in LIV has been largely condemned. And rightly so, the Saudi government was responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Kashoggi, with his body dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The main issue of the LIV Golf series, it seems, is where the money is coming from, and if the funding came from a reputable source would the resistance be the same? English golfers Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter were asked by journalists on Wednesday questions like, would they play in apartheid South Africa, and is there anywhere they wouldn’t play if the money was right?
The pair refused to answer those hypotheticals, but the questions were more revealing about public sentiment around LIV Golf. If the funding came from elsewhere, would the PGA Tour be more willing to make a compromise? Probably not. The only thing that’s clear at the moment, is that change is here – and that’s not always a bad thing, but considering the source it’s a long way from the moral choice.
IOL Sport