Sky Sports' Jamie Weir: "Let's be clear; there's one motive and one motive alone for these players choosing to play the LIV Series and burn their bridges with the PGA Tour: Money"
Wednesday 8 June 2022 10:09, UK
The LIV Golf Invitational Series is a "rag-tag bunch of struggling players, elder statesmen, journeymen plus a couple of marquee names," according to Sky Sports' Jamie Weir.
"After months of speculation, mudslinging, wild promises which were sketchy on the detail, and serious doubts over whether it would even happen at all - here we are, on the eve of a ball finally being struck on the hugely divisive and controversial, Saudi-backed LIV Golf Series.
"This week at the Centurion Club in Hertfordshire, 48 players - split into twelve teams of four - will compete over just 54 holes for a total purse of $25m. The individual winner will pocket $4m of that, with the player finishing 48th and dead last taking home $120,000 for his three days' work. $5m of the overall $25m pot is set aside for the team element of the tournament.
"The field is a rag-tag bunch of struggling players outside the world's top 1000, younger pros and amateurs just making their way in the game, elder statesmen of the game whose careers are on a downward trajectory, Asian and DP World Tour journeymen plus a couple of 'marquee names', most notably six-time major champion Phil Mickelson, making his return to competitive golf after four months of self-imposed exile.
"Tuesday's press conferences were fascinating. They began with a trio of major champions - Dustin Johnson, Louis Oosthuizen and Graeme McDowell - all justifying their decision to play based on this being a new, different, exciting format which will draw a different audience into golf. Many of them also used the now all-too-familiar mantra of 'growing the game', three words that drew audible groans from the assembled media.
"Let's be clear; there's one motive and one motive alone for these players choosing to play the LIV Series and burn their bridges with the PGA Tour: Money. When I put it to them that surely it wasn't remotely about any revolutionary format, but first and foremost about the eyewatering sums of cold hard cash on offer, they did eventually admit that that was their motivation.
"When they were asked about Saudi Arabia's brutal human rights record and its attitude towards women and homosexuals - a question they surely must have expected would be forthcoming - there was an initial reluctance to answer, before McDowell stepped in to respond on behalf of the group with the now-familiar refrain 'we're not politicians, we're professional golfers'. Oosthuizen and Johnson simply nodded along sagely.
"In a later press conference which featured Americans Kevin Na and Talor Gooch, who aside from Johnson and Oosthuizen are the only other players inside the world's top 50 competing this week, the same question was again asked. Gooch's response to whether he felt as if he was an active participant in sportswashing was, 'I don't think that's fair. I'm a golfer. I'm not that smart. I try to hit a golf ball into a small hole. Golf is hard enough. I try to worry about golf, and I'm excited about this week'.
"It's astonishing that Gooch should have weeks to have anticipated this question and to have prepared an answer, and yet this was the best he could come up with.
"The announcement yesterday that Jessie J will headline Saturday night's 'après-golf' concert. Her biggest hit is of course 'Price Tag', which begins with the lines 'Seems like everybody's got a price, I wonder how they sleep at night'"
"Six players have now 'resigned' from the PGA Tour as a show of their allegiance to the LIV Series; Na, Johnson, Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace and Sergio García. Others - McDowell and Gooch included - are yet to take the drastic step of relinquishing their PGA Tour membership altogether, instead opting to wait it out and see what possible sanctions they face for teeing it up on Thursday.
"Na in particular defended the breakaway league passionately, proclaiming himself to be a pioneer, there for the start of an exciting innovation which would change the face of golf. When he and Gooch were asked about forfeiting any chances of representing the USA at the Ryder Cup, they both responded that they didn't feel it would come to that; that the PGA of America would be forced into a climbdown on their decision to make those leaving for LIV ineligible.
"European Ryder Cup stalwarts such as García, McDowell, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer - all in the field this week - are in a similar position. The DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour) have kept their powder fairly dry in regards to repercussions for the defectors, but there is an assumption that taking the Saudi money and joining a series which poses an existential threat to the DP World Tour will surely result in any chances of playing in a Ryder Cup or becoming a future Ryder Cup captain being sacrificed.
"There is definitely a hope amongst the players that this doesn't have to be the case. They seem intent on having their cake and eating it.
"As a golf journalist this story has been incredible to cover, with fresh twists and turns on a weekly - often daily - basis. From a very public and increasingly bitter war of words between PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and LIV Golf's head honcho Greg Norman, to Rory McIlroy's evisceration of Phil Mickelson, calling him "naive, selfish, egotistical and ignorant". From Dustin Johnson's pledge of allegiance to the PGA Tour a few months ago to his bombshell U-turn just last week.
"There have been moments almost beyond parody; Norman declaring "everyone makes mistakes" when asked about the Saudis' brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi; a frankly embarrassing scenario last weekend when participants were uploading videos to their social media accounts giving away unlimited free tickets to this week's event, such is the lack of public interest; the announcement yesterday that Jessie J will headline Saturday night's 'après-golf' concert. Her biggest hit is of course 'Price Tag', which begins with the lines 'Seems like everybody's got a price, I wonder how they sleep at night'.
"It seems clear that it is indeed all about the money, money, money. And on Wednesday we will see Mickelson face the media for the first time in months. There are bound to be some interesting questions and even more intriguing answers. The world of golf is awaiting with baited breath just what one of the greatest players of all time - and the poster-boy of the movement threatening to drive a wedge through the game as we know it - has to say."
