The Times - UK (2022-02-03)

the times | Thursday February 3 2022 67

Sport

bright as young stars shine

cricket. Bethell has

been part of

Warwickshire’s set-up

since he came over to

Rugby School at 13, and

made his debut for the

county in all three

formats last summer.

He has Sir Garfield

Sobers as a golf

partner, as he told The

Times last week.

The left-handed

opening batsman has

scored 203 runs in the

tournament at 6.62 an

over — the highlight

being his 42-ball 88 in

the quarter-final win

over South Africa. The

second string to

Bethell’s bow is his left-

arm spin: he conceded

only 26 runs from ten

overs in the semi-final.

josh boyden

The 17-year-old left-

arm seamer from

Lancashire has been

England’s leading

wicket-taker en route

to the final, with 13

wickets at 9.53. After

starting the World Cup

with a pair of four-fors,

he has continued to be

miserly. With

Afghanistan needing

23 from 18 balls.

Boyden’s slower balls

and wide yorkers kept

the batsmen to only

four runs, paving the

way for Ahmed to

clean up the tail, before

Boyden defended 18

off the last.

England v India,

Under-19 World Cup final,

Saturday 1pm

TV Sky Sports Cricket

Money does not talk in golf, it shouts

through a megaphone. But if players in

the power struggle are now silenced by

confidentiality agreements, they will

have the final say in shaping the new

landscape. Not so much pawns in this

game but the kings, it seems fitting that

it could end up in court.

Phil Mickelson, who is believed to

have been offered $100 million (about

£74 million) to join the prospective Sau-

di-backed Super Golf League, said:

“Pretty much every player in the top

100 has been contacted at some point.”

They include Lee Westwood, who

admitted he has signed an NDA (non-

disclosure agreement), suggesting that

he also has an offer to consider.

Last week Colin Montgomerie sur-

veyed the battle between Saudi Arabia’s

golf investors and the PGA and DP

World Tours, the traditional American

and European powerhouses. He said

that it came down to “that evil word,

money”. Players such as Westwood and

Ian Poulter, who has received an offer

worth up to $30 million, are deciding

which is the lesser of two evils. Should

they take the Saudi money and risk

bans from their home tours, the Ryder

Cup and even the majors?

Speaking before this week’s Saudi

International — which starts today at

the Royal Greens Golf & Country Club

and where players have been tempted

by huge appearance fees — Westwood,

48, made a perceptive remark about the

Saudis’ investment in the Asian Tour.

“It’s like a game of poker where [the DP

World Tour] and PGA Tour have had

the biggest hand. Now somebody else

has come to the table with more chips.

I can see why they feel threatened.”

To recap: Saudi Arabia wants a Super

Golf League and has spent months try-

ing to tempt 48 players to join a world-

wide competition with individual and

team elements. The idea gathered pace

last summer when Mickelson was

targeted as a figurehead with Bryson

DeChambeau, Henrik Stenson, Justin

Rose, Brooks Koepka and Adam Scott

understood to have received offers of

up to $50 million.

In the meantime, the Saudis have

gained a foothold by buying into the

Asian Tour, so far via $300 million for a

The emergence of an American

transgender swimmer has led to USA

Swimming introducing a rule at elite

events whereby a panel will judge if

they have an unfair physical advantage.

Lia Thomas, who initially swam for

the men’s team at the University of

Pennsylvania before transitioning, has

been smashing records while compet-

ing as a woman after undergoing testo-

sterone treatment for more than a year.

That development prompted the

international swimming federation

Fina to last month put together a panel

of medical, legal and ethical experts to

advise on a new policy, but USA Swim-

ming has announced its own new rules.

Under them, swimmers must main-

tain a testosterone level below five

nanomoles per litre continuously for at

least 36 months before competition —

the same level required by World

Athletics for track and field athletes.

Westwood has signed an NDA; others

have received offers of $50 million

Top 100 at Super League

crossroads as bans loom

ten-stop International Series. That in-

cludes a tournament at Centurion Club

near St Albans in June which, an insider

told The Times, may become a test case

with the DP World Tour refusing to

grant releases to its players.

The response from the two main

tours has been defiant, led by Jay Mo-

nahan, the PGA Tour commissioner.

He addressed players at last year’s Wells

Fargo Championship and told them

that anyone defecting to a Saudi super

league would face an immediate ban.

Seth Waugh, president of the PGA of

America, added that rebels would be

banned from playing in the US PGA

Championship, one of golf’s four

majors, and the Ryder Cup.

The tours have avoided a legal

drama thus far by reluctantly

granting releases for this

week’s event in King Abd-

ullah Economic City.

Part of that was down to

a desire to withhold “the

heavy artillery” at this

stage, and because

players had contracts

from when the event was

on the European Tour.

The Centurion event will

pose a bigger problem. It clashes

with the only mixed-sex tournament

on the DP World Tour schedule in

Sweden and releases are un-

likely to be

given again.

Players choos-

ing to play will

face sanctions, al-

though it is expected

that it would take committing to a

series or league to prompt a DP

World Tour ban.

Ultimately, it will come down

to the players. Patrick Cantlay,

the world No 4, said: “I

wouldn’t be surprised if

people’s tune changed quick if

the best players want to play

elsewhere.” So far Rory McIl-

roy, Jon Rahm, Tiger Woods,

Collin Morikawa and Justin

Thomas have either said or im-

plied they are not interested.

So where does this go now?

When announcing details of the

International Series on Tuesday, Greg

Norman, the man fronting Saudi Ara-

bia’s golf project, promised “there will

be another announcement”. He also

said “when” we go to the USA. There

will be more battles for player releases,

more work for the lawyers and a tipping

point if enough players sign up.

There is still incredulity about how

much money players need and Mickel-

son admitted that the Saudi threat had

already benefited them. “I’m apprecia-

tive of the fact that there is competition,

and that leverage has allowed for a bet-

ter environment on the PGA Tour,” he

said. “We would not have the increase

in the FedEx Cup money. We would not

have the increase in The Players Cham-

pionship to $20 million.”

One matter not being dis-

cussed by many is Saudi’s

appalling human rights

record. The money for

the Asian Tour invest-

ment and super league

is coming from the king-

dom’s sovereign wealth

Public Investment Fund

(PIF). Alas, European

chiefs cannot take the moral

high ground; the Saudi Inter-

national used to be their event,

and was first held three months

after the murder of the dissident

journalist Jamal Khashoggi

in a Saudi embassy.

Golf has got itself to a

table so lavish that a

rival league, the Brit-

ish-based Premier

Golf League, has

struggled to get

people to take any

notice. “We’ve been

refining the terms of our

offer,” Andy Gardiner, the

chief executive, said. Interest-

ingly the former lawyer adds

that, despite wanting to work

with the PGA Tour, legal ex-

perts have assured him that ban

threats will not stand up.

It remains to be seen whether

the top golfers, especially those

under the age of 40, are willing to

test that assertion. The tri-conti-

nental struggle is not a moral

maze, but a crossroads. The

players have power and their

next moves could be decisive.

Saudi

International

Royal Greens Golf &

Country Club

Today, first tee 4am

TV: FreeSports

Golf

Rick Broadbent

Trans swimmer forces US rule change

USA Swimming said that a three-

person medical panel will also deter-

mine whether “prior physical develop-

ment of the athlete as a male” gives

transgender swimmers an unfair

advantage in elite competition.

Sharron Davies, the former British

Olympic swimmer who has cam-

paigned on the issue, said that USA

Swimming’s new policy does not go far

enough to protect the women’s compe-

tition. She told The Times: “It is a good

step by USA Swimming but it is not

meeting the problem head on. Anything

that is subjective, such as a decision by a

panel, has the risk of being problematic

and I don’t think it is the answer.”

Davies said that she supported the

inclusion of transgender swimmers in

competition: “I would like to see an open

and inclusive category so that trans

women are made to feel welcome, and

then a protected female classification.”

USA Swimming said that its statisti-

cal data shows that the top-ranked

female swimmer in 2021 would be

ranked 536th in short-course male

events and 326th in long-course ones.

British Swimming’s chief executive,

Jack Buckner, said that the governing

body was reviewing its own guidelines

and would be discussing the issue with

USA Swimming this month.

Buckner told The Times: “We knew it

was a live issue and we are going to be

looking at our policies and consult with

the home nations, UK Sport and other

governing bodies. We want to be

informed by the best information out

there. We also want to see the outcome

of Fina’s review of this. Ideally we do not

want the athletes to be affected by dif-

ferent guidelines in different places.”

Swimming

Martyn Ziegler Chief Sports Reporter

Thomas competes

for the University

of Pennsylvania

defeat in the Ashes. Giles, inset, cited Covid as one of the reasons for the mess

TERTIUS PICKARD/AP