As a golfer, I’ve been following the newly formed LIV golf tour / organization with great interest. It’s funded by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which is a fancy way of saying it’s funded by the Saudi Arabian government.
LIV (which supposedly comes from the Roman numeral for 54, the score a golfer would likely have if they birdied every hole in a round of golf) bills itself as a rival to the PGA tour / organization. It’s been recruiting golfers to play in its limited events, in some cases paying them huge up-front money – even offering 9-figure amounts to the biggest names.
The term some are using to describe LIV is ‘sportswashing’, meaning this a way for the Saudis to cover-up their awful record on human rights. It’s the same thing China has done recently by hosting the Olympics. Market the country through sports, in a way that obscures how that country oppresses people.
I get the money is enticing for these golfers, even life-changing for some of them. The PGA has always operated in a way that makes the players independent contractors, there’s nothing keeping them there.
I also get and agree that organizational competition is a good thing, and LIV has already made the PGA make changes for the better to its structure.
Regardless of whether you call it sportswashing, I would not support LIV. But more importantly, why do some of these players? Why would the already famous, wealthy pro golfers choose to associate themselves with a regime like this?
They might make a greater fortune, but they'll lose their fame. Everyone considers the LIV the minor leagues right now, with no top-20 golfers signed, and not many from even the top-100 are expected to sign. LIV players will miss out on some major championships, and the biennial Ryder Cup. Also, the LIV tour has no major television coverage, so no one is going to see or care about these players anymore.
That’s particularly true for the legendary ones, like my now former favorite golfer Phil Mickelson. He says publicly he’s just trying to ‘grow the game’ by endorsing LIV (and taking a 9-figure sum) but all he’s doing is tarnishing his image. At age 50+, he isn’t going to be much of a threat to win again anyway, even on the watered-down LIV tour.
It all sucks for golf fans, too, who want to see the best play against the best. In terms of competition, this whole thing reminds me of Indy-car racing in the mid-90s, which split into two groups and completely watered down that sport for years. It made even the Indianapolis 500 unwatchable.
In summary, I’d say that competition is a good thing, but not all competitors are good, and this is one of those cases. If you want to align yourself with a new competitor, maybe make sure they don’t represent some of the worst people in the world.
