Commentary: PGA Tour and Saudi-backed LIV Golf agree to merge. Now comes the fallout
What a landmark day for golf. Everybody is under one big umbrella. The wedge is gone.
The PGA Tour and LIV Golf have beaten their raised four-irons into plowshares, dropped their lawsuits and are happily moving forward arm in arm.
“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” said PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, revealing the stunning news Tuesday that the battling leagues — as well as the DP World Tour (also known as the European Tour) — are merging to form a yet-unnamed, for-profit entity with funding from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
But what about the days to come? We’ve seen the celebration. Now comes the fallout.
This hasn’t just been “disruption and distraction.” The Saudi-backed LIV Golf Invitational Series was painted, maybe rightly so, as a cataclysmic threat to the game. It pitted player against player — the loyalists who stood by the PGA Tour, sometimes turning down the guarantee of generational wealth, and the players many viewed as traitorous for switching sides to accept money that was “dirty” because of Saudi Arabia’s history of human rights violations.
And now all is forgotten?
Consider the case of rising star Will Zalatoris. He reportedly turned down $130 million from LIV earlier this year. He was runner-up at the 2021 Masters, lost in a playoff at the 2022 PGA Championship, and nearly forced a playoff at last year’s U.S. Open.
Zalatoris pulled out of the Masters in April just before his first-round tee time because of a back injury, and he later announced he had undergone surgery and is done for the year. Lots of players have returned from significant injuries to great success, so that’s a well-traveled path. But that safety net of money would be nice right now, especially if that morality stigma has seemingly evaporated.
While Phil Mickelson, the face of LIV, is gleeful about the merger — “Awesome day today,” he tweeted with a smiley-face emoji — players who stuck with the PGA Tour sounded almost blindsided.
“I love finding out morning news on Twitter,” tweeted Collin Morikawa, who could have commanded a fortune had he jumped to LIV.
Michael Kim, who likewise made the jump from Cal to the PGA Tour, was more direct: “Very curious how many people knew this deal was happening. About 5-7 people? Player run organization right?” he tweeted, followed by a shrugging emoji.
Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and others couldn’t resist the staggering paydays promised by the LIV Golf series, and the PGA Tour takes the threat seriously.
This isn’t just a peace treaty, it’s a merger among warring factions. Who could have imagined this two weeks ago during the awkward trophy presentation at the PGA Championship, when Seth Waugh, chief executive of the PGA of America, looked as if he would rather be anywhere than standing beside LIV’s Brooks Koepka for an obligatory photo op?
The two didn’t shake hands, and Waugh said something to Koepka as he walked away, leaving the golfer to smile and shake his head as if to say, “What’s up with that guy?”
Brandel Chamblee, analyst for the Golf Channel who has been one of LIV’s most outspoken critics, tweeted a week ago that LIV wasn’t so much a sports entity as it was Saudi Arabia and its crown prince “trying to hide their atrocities and launder its reputation by buying sports stars. Any yielding to or agreement with them is a deal with a murderous dictator.”
After news of the merger, Koepka tweeted: “Welfare Check on Chamblee.”
This isn’t over. This isn’t unity. The fallout is only beginning.
Two-time British Open champion Greg Norman is not allowed to participate at St. Andrews because he is chief executive of the LIV Golf International series.
This is a victory for LIV Golf. The PGA Tour caved, and the landscape has already changed. Acrimony aside, those changes benefit the players in the form of more autonomy and significantly bigger purses.
On another note, it’s a bummer for Los Angeles Country Club, which next week plays host to the U.S. Open for the first time. The major championship hasn’t taken place in L.A. for 75 years.
Now, instead of inquiries about their impressions of the spectacular North Course, players will be peppered with questions about the merger.
Everybody’s under the same umbrella now. But the storm is only just rolling in.
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