Saudi Arabia’s bogey golf series is destined to flop

The LIV Golf circus has got underway at the Centurion Club in Hemel Hempstead, and one can’t deny that it has a certain interest (and no, I don’t know what LIV stands for, and I can’t be bothered to find out). The billionaires and less distinguished players in search of a substantial pension plot have not been required to offer public thanks to Saudi Arabia and its sovereign wealth fund for their lavish generosity.

Greg Norman, the project’s frontman, as unimpressive before a microphone as he was impressive on the links in his golfing heyday, tells us LIV has brought free agency to the game of golf.

Well, I suppose any breakaway from the established order may be described as “free agency” in a sense. That might have been claimed for European football’s proposed Super League. The fans soon showed what they thought of that and it expired overnight long before a ball had been kicked. Golf doesn’t have that sort of fan base. So LIV may have more chance of success, or at least survival.

On the other hand, nobody outside its own magic circle is going to care who wins its tournaments. The Centurion Club at Hemel Hempstead isn’t the Old Course at St Andrews or Masters at Augusta. LIV is challenging the PGA in America and what used to be called the European Tour, but for the moment anyway, the established order still has the trick-taking cards.

The winners of LIV’s tournaments will receive huge cheques, but no Claret Jug or Green Jacket. Winners of golf’s majors are remembered, just as winners of the Derby and the Arc de Triomphe are. LIV will flop or peter out if its players are debarred from the major tournaments. The PGA has already suspended the membership of players who have signed up for the Saudi millions. If the suspension holds, surviving a legal challenge, LIV is likely to be short-lived. 

Some have compared this to Kerry Packer’s cricket breakaway in the 1970s, but that was very different. Packer’s motive was clear. He wanted to secure TV rights to Australian cricket which he had been denied. He recruited almost all the best Australian cricketers, and stars from the West Indies, England and South Africa to provide his Australia XI with opposition.

Moreover, cricketers everywhere but in England were no more than semi-pros, holding down other jobs or, in the case of the West Indians, playing their trade for English counties or in the Lancashire Leagues. Even English test cricketers were poorly paid. Nobody then became rich playing cricket. Packer won his battle with the Australian Cricket Board. Things returned to normal, the only difference being that Test match players everywhere were better paid.

In contrast, all the ageing stars who have signed up to take Saudi millions have already made huge amounts of money out of their career in LIV golf. Most of them are worth hundreds of millions. Dustin Johnson says he is doing this for his family. How much money does his family need?

Is it even – he might pause to wonder – good for his children to have so much money they haven’t themselves earned. While it is clear that he cares deeply about money, doesn’t he care for his own reputation?

For Europeans it is depressing to see players we have admired, even revered. Stars of Ryder Cup-winning winning teams like Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter are now happy to take the Saudi loot and seemingly indifferent to the damage they are doing to their reputation.

Happily – so far anyway – golfers still in the summer rather than the autumn (or even winter) of their career have resisted the temptation to sign up for LIV. Some – Rory McIlroy being a happy example – have greeted the Saudi enterprise with a proper contempt. Nevertheless, money talks very loudly, often seductively. This is why it is important that the established order – the PGA especially – not only holds its ground but defends its position intelligently.

Suspension may be temporary, though one must confess it is difficult to see an acceptable way back for the rebels. The best hope for the established game is that the LIV tour is met with public indifference, and indeed this may well be the case once the initial flurry dies down.

The American Open next week and The British Open at St Andrew’s next month will not suffer from the absence of Johnson, Mickelson and co whose glamour and prowess are failing.