How hollow, how dripping in faux self-righteousness those words now seem. I would ask any player who has left, or any player who would consider leaving, ‘Have you ever had to apologise for being a member of the PGA Tour?’” Two families close to me lost loved ones in 9/11. If you want a compelling illustration of this, rewind to last year’s Canadian Open, where Monahan had the gall to say of players cashing the Saudi cheques: “I think you’d have to be living under a rock not to know there are significant implications.
But sadly, he picked the wrong sport for idealism. The fact that he did not owed much to his loyalty to Monahan, and his belief that the PGA Tour would, as the powerful competitive counterpoint to LIV’s gaudy exhibition-style alternative, do the right thing. McIlroy may as well have taken the £320 million offer reputedly on the table from LIV. For there is nothing to be gained in golf from being a paragon of virtue. In almost every detail, this is exactly what has transpired.
If you don’t take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and you will only say how smart the original signees were.” Last July, the 45th president wrote on his Truth Social network: “All of those golfers who remain loyal to the very disloyal PGA, in all its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable merger with LIV comes, and when you get nothing but a big thank you from PGA officials who are making millions of dollars a year. It is an astonishingly shameless move that leaves Donald Trump looking like a true clairvoyant. What was it all for when his ally Monahan just decided, after so much high-mindedness, to take the Saudi riyals in any case? But he has morals!” Just think of all the grief this political schism has already brought McIlroy: all the distractions from preparing for majors, all the lost friendships with his Ryder Cup team-mates. The next, he is the object of derision on social media, with one meme crowing: “Passed on a few hundred million dollars and hasn’t won a major in almost a decade. One moment, he is being feted as the saviour of golf, prioritising his integrity over LIV’s blandishments. Rory McIlroy must be wondering why he bothered. And if Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, is content to abandon his righteous indignation to let it happen, what hope is there for anyone else who conscientiously objects? Their logical next step, having played the disruptors through the LIV experiment, is to gobble up golf altogether. It is a signal that resistance to the Saudis’ limitless sovereign wealth is, ultimately, futile. The joint announcement by the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV that they are coming together “under one umbrella”, all bankrolled by a Saudi Public Investment Fund estimated at £500 billion, marks a watershed in the nation-state takeover of sport.
And so, after posturing as the decent brokers fighting against a rotten plot to split golf in two, they resolve that the simpler solution is, effectively, to let the Saudis annexe the sport. For when presented with their own stark choice between taking Riyadh’s billions and staying steadfast in their morals, the main tours decide the morally defensible path is overrated. So much for all the PGA Tour’s none-too-subtle efforts to paint the LIV Golf renegades as mercenaries complicit in the legitimising of a bloodthirsty Saudi regime. So much for the soaring principles, then.
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