The PGA Tour goes the place the cash is, irrespective of how darkish the alley

We’re all higher for the merger of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. Higher for the curtain having been pulled away for good. Higher for dwelling in actuality than some sappy fiction.

What the PGA Tour is about, what it’s all the time been about, is the making of cash. 

Something related to the Tour is just money dressed up in what the keepers of the sport wish to promote: honor, grace and sportsmanship, with Jim Nantz’ buttery voice and a few chirping birds as a soundtrack. It’s one, massive pleased deception.

Let’s be clear: The PGA Tour shouldn’t be partnering with LIV Golf. It’s partnering with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund, which bankrolls LIV. The settlement between the 2 golf circuits, together with the DP World Tour, creates a brand new industrial entity. The chairman of the board of that new industrial entity? Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudis’ Public Funding Fund. I’m eagerly awaiting PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan’s try and spin that right into a victory for the the Aristocracy of the sport.

The Saudi monarchy has been attempting to scrub up its murderous picture for years. A method of wiping away the blood is thru sportswashing. Put money into one thing as genteel as golf and perhaps the nation’s horrible human rights abuses received’t get observed as a lot. That’s Saudi Arabia’s recreation plan, and it’s working. Al-Rumayyan doesn’t simply have a foot within the door. He’s working the assembly.

Monahan has betrayed the gamers who stayed with the PGA Tour when LIV Golf got here bearing dump vans of cash. Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods did their finest Winston Churchill impressions in the course of the Tour’s darkest hour, then watched Monahan promote out. Think about being McIlroy, probably the most vocal defender of the Tour and its historical past the previous few years. Think about waking up one morning and getting a name that the sworn enemy was now a pal. Think about the sensation of being on their lonesome together with your official Tour megaphone and pom-poms.

The ethical of the story is that the PGA Tour doesn’t have any morals. It’s going to get into mattress with anyone to outlive. These of you who thought there have been limits to greed have been naive. 

Among the gamers who defected to LIV Golf are gloating, which isn’t any shock. Cash is how they maintain rating, and their scorecard tells them they received massive. LIV paid them handsomely whereas they put up with the criticism that comes with making a take care of the satan. The PGA/LIV merger sportswashes them, too. They’ll discover their means again into the swing of the Tour and again into followers’ hearts, in the event that they ever have been banished.

There’s nothing inherently immoral about cash. All of us want it to outlive. However how a lot do we’d like? For Phil Mickelson, there’s by no means sufficient. His insatiable urge for food for extra was pitted in opposition to the Tour’s fantasy of golf because the gentleman’s recreation. He misplaced within the courtroom of public opinion for a number of years. McIlroy may not be thanking him right this moment, however different gamers who watched the Tour’s match purses improve in response to LIV’s larger finances most likely have been tipping a cap to outdated Lefty for his capitalist heroics.

Golf has all the time been the wealthy man’s recreation. It attracts people who find themselves rich and individuals who wish to be rich. Their language is cash. You may begin talking it, too, for those who have been round it lengthy sufficient, the way in which the professionals are. Enjoying golf is the most important factor in Tour gamers’ lives, nevertheless it’s so intertwined with being profitable that it’s inconceivable to separate the 2.

But LIV Golf was so excessive with its gluttony that many gamers couldn’t swallow it.

Monahan acknowledged he could possibly be considered as a hypocrite for initially questioning the place LIV’s cash got here from after which, finally, agreeing to a merger with LIV and its deep pockets.

A hypocrite? Jay? By no means! Right here’s what he needed to say final 12 months when requested concerning the Saudi monarchy’s alleged ties to the 9/11 assaults:

“I believe you’d should be dwelling below a rock to not know there are important implications. I’d ask any participant who has left or any participant who would contemplate leaving, ‘Have you ever ever needed to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?’ ”

At the least it’s all out within the open now: Cash means by no means having to apologize for something.