The Sunday Times May 1, 2022 17Golf
PGA Tour’s regulation of the game are
shared by many players.
“Compared to golf,” Mickelson told
an interviewer last year, “football,
baseball and basketball have roughly
55 per cent of their revenues going to
the players. On the PGA Tour, we have
26 per cent. We don’t have a vehicle to
make sure the top players get taken
care of. For example, we don’t own
our media rights at all, so anything
that is shot at a tournament, the PGA
Tour puts it up on its website and
makes millions off it.
“I don’t know what’s going to
become of [the Saudi plan] but the
competition is going to be good for the
best players. For the first time the top
players are being valued by the PGA
Tour.”
The key collision between LIV Golf
and the PGA Tour is likely to come
about over the second LIV tourna-
ment, which takes place in Portland,
Oregon, at the beginning of July. This
clashes with the John Deere Classic in
Illinois and the Horizon Irish Open at
Mount Juliet. The John Deere has a
$7 million purse, the Irish Open
$6 million. They will be up against a
tournament offering $25 million in
prize money.
Some members of the PGA Tour are
likely to apply for releases to play in
Portland and it is certain their
requests will be denied. The PGA Tour
believes it is entitled to ban any of its
members who play the LIV tourna-
ment in Oregon under a clause in its
agreement with the players, which
says PGA Tour members are not
permitted to play an event in North
America organised by a rival tour.
The PGA Tour commissioner, Jay
Monahan, is confident that it can ban
players who play in Portland. Norman
gently disagrees, insisting his lawyers
are of the view that as independent
contractors, pro golfers should be free
to choose to play wherever they want,
provided they fulfil their 15-event
commitment to the PGA Tour.
There is a strong possibility that
Norman is right. There are also indica-
tions that Mickelson intends to play all
eight LIV tournaments and any
attempt to expel him from the PGA
Tour is likely to result in a lawsuit.
Given the events of the past two
months, it is not like Mickelson has
much to lose. As for Norman and LIV
Golf, they would relish the chance to
take on the PGA Tour in court.
The elite players, who were critical
of Mickelson’s courting of the Saudis
and who pledged their allegiance to
the PGA Tour, would benefit
significantly from a court ruling that
established their right to play
wherever they liked. “These tourna-
ments are going to happen, whether
people like it or not,” the European
Tour pro Matt Southgate said. The
irony is that many of Southgate’s
peers will like it, as the LIV tourna-
ments are bringing so much money
into the game: $255 million spread
over eight tournaments this year. Nor-
man says this is just the beginning,
and believes there will be ten tourna-
ments in 2023, 12 in 2024, 14 in 2025.
“We’re here for the long term.
We’re not going away,” he says.‘According to
Norman, 15 players
from the world’s top
100 will play at the
Centurion Club’DAVID
WA LS HChief Sports WriterP
ut yourself in the golf shoes
of the European Tour pro
who makes a living but not a
fortune from playing the
game. At the beginning of
the season, he looked at the
schedule and mentally
ticked the Scandinavian
Mixed. Though the $2 million
(£1.59 million) purse is modest, this
unique tournament involving the best
men and women in European golf
appealed to him.
Alas, a bad run of form since the
start of the season has meant that the
player has dropped in the rankings,
and as the Scandinavian tournament
involves only 78 men and 78 women,
it is unlikely that he will get in. There is
though, now, another option. Last
month the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV
Golf announced the dates and venues
for eight tournaments it will stage
around the world this year.
On the weekend of the Scandina-
vian Mixed — June 9 to 11 — the first LIV
tournament will take place at the
Centurion Club in St Albans, north of
London. It offers a prize fund of
$25 million (about £20 million). Only
48 players will be invited to play in a
54-hole tournament and, with no cut,
the winner will receive $4 million, and
the man who finishes last $120,000.
Fearing he won’t get into the
Scandinavian Mixed, the player
thinks there is a chance that with his
profile he may receive an invitation to
play the LIV event. Keith Pelley, the
chief executive of the European Tour,
doesn’t think he should play in the
$25 million tournament but should
instead see the bigger picture and be
mindful of the ethical implications of
committing to any LIV event. Pelley
hopes that none of his players accepts
the LIV invitation.
At the beginning of this year the
European Tour was rebranded as the
DP World Tour after the Dubai-based
logistics company agreed to invest
tens of millions of pounds into the
game. DP World also owns P&O
Ferries, the company criticised by
government and opposition leaders
after controversially sacking 800
workers last month. It could be said
that DP World’s huge investment in
European golf is another form of
sportswashing — the practice of coun-
tries and corporations using sport to
enhance their reputations.
The part that makes no sense to the
player is that even though he is legally
considered to be an independent
contractor, he is not entirely free to
play wherever he wishes. Though he
would accept the LIV invitation only if
he did not get into the Scandinavian
Mixed, there is pressure on him to
steer clear of lucrative LIV tourna-
ments. From the grapevine, he hears
that if he applies for permission to
play at the Centurion Club, the DP
World Tour would not grant it.
If he just goes ahead and plays in
the LIV tournament, he may be
banned and would almost certainly
be fined. Equally certain is that he
would be criticised by some golf fans
for lending support to an event
bankrolled by Saudi Arabia.
He knows about the brutal murder
of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi by
agents of the state and the country’slamentable human rights record. But
Formula One goes there, the world’s
richest horse race takes place there,
the Premier League has allowed one
of its clubs to be bought by a Saudi-
backed group, Britain continues to
trade with Saudi Arabia and last
month the prime minister travelled
there to talk with Saudi authorities
about oil. Golf is just one more entity
that does business with the Saudis.
The player knows the feeling
among European pros. They are inter-
ested in the LIV events, and many who
receive invitations to the Centurion
Club will accept. There will be some
high-profile players involved: most
likely Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood,
Ian Poulter, Adam Scott, Sergio García
and Graeme McDowell.According to the LIV Golf chief
executive, Greg Norman, 15 players
from the world’s top 100 will play at
the Centurion Club. The rest of the
field will be made up of mostly high-
ranking players from the DP World
Tour. From where LIV Golf is
standing, this is not a bad start. From
where the rest of us stand, this is the
start of a new world. An injection of
$255 m in eight new tournaments was
always going to be transformative.
Despite pledges of loyalty to the
PGA Tour by a number of the world’s
best players during the Genesis
Invitational at Riviera Country Club in
February, it would be wrong to
believe that Mickelson was the only
one with concerns. Though he is now
the pariah, his misgivings about theDESERT
STORM
Saudi Arabia hosts F1 races and is
bankrolling Newcastle United, so why
should its riches be off limits to golf?
LUKE WALKER/WME IMG/GETTY IMAGESCLASH OF THE TOURS
LIV Golf Invitational PGA Tour
DP World (European) TourJun 9-11: Centurion (England) $25mJun 9-12: Canadian Open $8.7mJun 9-12: Scandinavian Mixed $2mOverall prize moneySep 1-4: Made in HimmerLand (Denmark)$3mSep 2-4: The International (USA) $25mSep 15-18: Italian Open $3mSep 16-18: Rich Harvest Farms (USA) $25mJun 30-Jul 3: John Deere Classic $7.1mJun 30-Jul 3: Irish OpenJul 1-3: Pumpkin Ridge (USA) $25m$6mJul 29-31: Trump National (Bedminster, USA)$25mJul 28-31: Rocket Mortgage Classic$8.4mJul 28-31: Hero Open (Scotland) $1.75mOct 7-9: Stonehill (Thailand) $25mOct 7-10: Spanish Open $1.75mOct 14-16: Royal Greens (Saudi) $25mOct 13-16: Andalucia Masters $3mOct 27-30: Trump National (Doral, USA)$25m27-30: WGC-HSBC Champions (China)$10.5m
PGA Tour schedule from Sept 2022 TBCNorman, left, and
Mickelson’s
courting of the
Saudis has
caused a stir