And so what, amirite?
This piece in the NY Times about the Saudi Arabian sponsored LIV golf tour is a fascinating account of global power and greed. The Saudis are using their tour to whitewash their image with the help of some very greedy golfers and the help of one extremely powerful American politician. Some members of the PGA, led by Tiger Woods are fighting back, and as for now, they still have the upper hand with all the lucrative media and the big tournaments.
If the organizers of the sport’s elite tournaments, some of whom have criticized the new circuit, bar even some of the scores of LIV golfers from the British Open, the Masters, the P.G.A. Championship and the U.S. Open starting next year, the upstart will have to find a way to diminish the siren songs of the green jacket and the claret jug. If LIV continues without a television deal, it will be starved of access to potentially millions of fans. And the PGA Tour can still depict the series as a brutal regime’s project to look better on the global stage.
That perception, more than anything else, has been one of the tour’s most powerful public relations tools so far, and it may long temper the flow of corporate sponsorship dollars through and around the LIV world.
Worries about Saudi influence, though, have not deterred former President Donald J. Trump from offering vocal support for the series, keeping the circuit with a powerful ally and clear access to at least some good courses. The site of the team championship, run by the Trumps for years, was a PGA Tour mainstay for decades, and Trump courses are expected to be fixtures of LIV’s 2023 season.
Trump, in a brief interview with The New York Times as he left the 18th hole near Miami on Thursday, said he had not entertained any second thoughts about his family-controlled golf courses hosting LIV events. Although Trump’s family has not disclosed how much it is earning from LIV tournaments, the former president suggested that his conversations with Saudi officials had persuaded him that the kingdom’s embrace of golf was “very important to them” and that “they’re putting a lot of effort into it and a lot of money into it.”
As president, Trump publicly resisted American intelligence agencies when they concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had authorized the 2018 murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Asked on Thursday about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, Trump said, “We have human rights issues in this country, too.”
Earlier in the afternoon, though, Trump had been eager to criticize the PGA Tour and to extol the virtues of LIV leaders.
“They should have embraced instead of fighting,” he said of the PGA Tour after he played the 17th hole during a pro-am event. “You’re not going to beat these people. These people have great spirit, they’re phenomenal people and they have unlimited money — unlimited.”
Half this country wants this man to be president again. And they really believe that will defend America against all enemies foreign and domestic. It’s mind-boggling.
He. Will. Not. He is personally in the pocket of foreign tyrants who have his number. And he likes it. Keep this in mind as the Republicans spend the next two years screaming about how Joe Biden sold out the country to Ukraine to make money when his son worked for a Ukrainian gas company.