The Saudis used LIV Golf to win Trump over. The players were just rich pawns
The rumors turned out to be true and LIV Golf lost its Saudi overdraft. If you care about the reunited professional golf world, you’ll wish it well.
LIV was a political action. Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud, has decided to pour billions of dollars into football, tennis, motor racing, golf and other sports to achieve a variety of goals, including repairing the reputation of human rights abuses. murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The sport would be multi-purpose, signaling Saudi modernity and diversity. The golfers who received billions of dirty petrodollars were deliberately naive tools in this political game.
Same political factors It led to the withdrawal of the Saudi Public Investment FundNot because LIV didn’t work, but because the Crown Prince (MBS) fell out with US President Donald Trump and realigned Saudi-US relations and spending.
MBS’s hopes of using the sport to gain favor with golf-loving Trump were dashed. He takes his bats and balls and goes home. LIV is losing support because the two authorities are out of love. Boohoo.
LIV hasn’t closed yet, it just doesn’t have money after 2026. CEO Scott O’Neil is working on a business plan. Betrayed by his boss, Yasir al-Rumayyan, the pro-LIV head of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, resigned in disgrace.
Assuming she dies, we can prepare LIV’s obituary. Although this was never one of their KPIs, it did not attract the attention of large audiences in the US. Like all breakaway leagues dating back to Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket and Jack Kramer’s professional tennis tour, LIV’s aim was not to make money but to get its rival to beg for compromise on the rebels’ terms.
The PGA Tour rallied American billionaires and corporations as it saw television ratings plummet. Considering what the PGA has done to itself in response to the LIV threat, it is difficult to see a simple victory of good over evil.
The PGA LIVED itself to some extent. When LIV started rolling events, the PGA followed suit, keeping its stars happy but alienating hundreds of mid-level players who couldn’t start their “signature” events.
This weekend the PGA Tour returns to Trump’s Doral course in Florida for the first time in a decade. The split was a fight between two wings of MAGA, business and political.
What about golf? LIV’s main appeal to players was more money for a lighter schedule and a global tour to break the PGA’s initial dominance in America. While LIV never escaped obscurity in the U.S. market, it brought top players to Australia, South Africa, Asia, Mexico, and the Middle East and was successful in attracting non-American audiences.
LIV’s death will return the Australian tour to its former state and bets will be placed for a week on a single Rory McIlroy or Bryson DeChambeau arriving here. Its failure will be good for domestic American golf. LIV’s legacy will be to narrow and tighten the PGA’s stranglehold rather than break it.
LIV sold itself as an attempt to reinvent gaming. But the 54-hole format was abandoned in the hope of removing the obstacle to players earning points in the official world golf rankings. LIV’s shotgun starts never seemed to have much of a purpose other than maintaining the tension of team competitions. The potential of team play in professional golf remains untapped, and when LIV died, men’s professional golf reverted to the Ryder and Presidents Cups.
LIV’s hectic and confusing television package was difficult to accept. The “party hole” is a PGA Tour idea that started at the Phoenix Open. LIV was keen to alienate old audiences to find new ones by trying to expand on this with music and festivities around the course. Maybe some of this will continue, maybe none of it will, but judging by the shamefully insular behavior of the PGA Tour crowd over the last 12 months, golf’s demographics were heading in that direction whether LIV encouraged them or not.
Did LIV harm the standard of play of the golfers who received the money? Although morally appealing, the argument is not supported by evidence. Anyone who plays and watches LIV can attest to the seriousness and high quality of the competition.
Cameron Smith’s performances in the majors have declined since he went to LIV, but PGA stalwarts like Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler have fallen from high peaks to lower lows over the same period. Patrick Cantlay, Viktor Hovland and Tommy Fleetwood, all PGA players, had Smith-like surges where they were outmatched before falling into decline. This is golf. LIV didn’t ruin careers.
LIV’s David Puig ran away with the Australian PGA, and another rebel, Joaquin Niemann, had won an earlier Australian Open. Since joining LIV, Tyrrell Hatton has emerged as a true top contender and Ryder Cup star. DeChambeau and Jon Rahm remained elite throughout their time at LIV. Patrick Reed has won three straight tournaments while Brooks Koepka has struggled since leaving LIV. There’s no rhyme or reason why golfers go through such extreme ups and downs, but evidence suggests it has nothing to do with what round they’re on. The lows are as inexplicable as the highs, and the uniqueness of the game makes it difficult enough to understand from the inside, let alone from the outside.
More worrying for LIV players will be their future. If it closes, will they be allowed back on the PGA Tour? Special allowances were created for Koepka, carrying huge penalties, and many PGA faithful were angry that he was even admitted. Reed returns with the DP World Tour, which is the route for many LIV players, but the backlash is strong and the Schadenfreude will be stronger.
Most non-LIV players will look at their opponents and say you’ve got the money, you can go fill your plunge pool with your tears. A potential reunion and influx of former LIV players would require careful management from the top. Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and other LIV veterans will ride off into the sunset, but there is also a bunch of young talent with a future worth negotiating with, including Puig, Niemann, Tom McKibbin, Australia’s Elvis Smylie and Talor Gooch.
After all, the players were used, knowingly sold, and now they are dying because of the sword they own. One political game ended with another political game and the golfers became pawns.
Rich pawns, sure, but when it comes to their ambitions to remake professional golf, it’s hard to see LIV leaving a positive long-term legacy. With the funds withdrawn due to the Saudi regime being in trouble, any trappings about this being about reinventing golf will be as invisible as Norman’s new clothes.
Malcolm Knox is a journalist, author and columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.
