Golfers taking Saudi money and splitting the sport

Muahahaha

Looks like golf as a sport is now irreparably damaged with the news that the PGA have suspended all the players who are taking part in the latest attempt at Saudi sportswashing, the new LIV tour. Players like Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickleson are reported to have been paid $200m and $150m respectively to play for the new Saudi backed tour, Grahme McDowell is also on board.

Tiger was supposedly offered up to $1bn to join it but he refused as has McIllroy and the rest of the worlds top 10. Players who have joined the Saudi backed tour have now been suspended by the PGA effectively splitting the sport in two with more players likely to go overboard for the huge sums of money on offer.

Its a pity really that we may never against see the best playing the best again, Majors wont be the same again if many of the best players are missing.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/golf/61746560

Yurt2

Grubby business, and not restricted to the sporting world.

Plenty of our captains of industry here in Ireland do stints in Saudi for ridiculous money. Witness our DAA friends devoting their time and energy to Jeddah airport.

It's a hard reality that Saudis enjoy outsized influence on the world by dint of their energy reserves, and that will only grow now that Russia's name is rightfully in the dirt.

It's the devil's bargain we've struck for energy stability. Realistically, what are we going to do about it? If the US ceased backstopping their security, the Chinese would be there the next morning offering their services - and the world will have changed fundamentally.

I don't like the Saudis one bit, the West could stand to be a bit tougher with them on a whole host of matters, but their influence is something I'm resigned to unfortunately.

is_that_so

Teachers and nurses also do Saudi stints so that they can afford to come back here and buy a house. They are nowhere near the same league as these self-obsessed money sniffers who are lending credibility to a very suspect political regime courting respectability. The defection by some players, largely in their 40s and 50s, is pure soul selling but it remains to be seen just how much of a split there is. The sense is that most will still stick with the PGA and the established order.

Still stihl waters 3

Hard to turn down that sort of money, more power to them

smurfjed

@Yurt2 do you consider the UAE and Qatari investments funds the same?

bucketybuck

I don't blame those players for taking the money, a guaranteed tens or hundreds of millions is no small thing for players getting near the tail end of their career.

But I doubt this will harm the PGA much in the long run. The Saudi's bought a few players and held a little tournament, good for them, but do the public really give a toss about it? The PGA have the masters, the open, the Ryder cup etc etc, and the best players will always want to be mixing it in the big tournaments. Its not as if the top players are slumming it in the PGA, plenty of money there too so thats where the big players will go.

The Saudis can throw money around all they want but they can't buy class or history, just look at how little people care about the likes of City or PSG buying their trophies for example. They can spunk a few billion on this sportswashing but the top golfers won't want to be outside looking in on the Masters every year.

Augme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119180700#Comment_119180700

Technically they don't the masters and two of the other Open majors. The masters pick who is allowed played and the PGA technically have no say. The two open tournaments are, as the name describes, open to anyone. So the LIV players can't enter the qualifying tournaments for those two events.

Whatdoesitmatter

More power to them

Beasty

Michelson's net worth before the $200m he's receiving for this is around $400m

He says he's doing it to provide for his family

Maybe he wants to buy them one of those yachts that have recently come on the market

Richard Hillman

Apparently there's no drug testing and a couple of players are known to like the sandy stuff. There's also a player signed up that everyone is convinced is juicing.

Wouldn't be surprised if "Man of the people" Shane Lowry rocks up in a few weeks and plays the family card. He played in the Saudi open a few months ago.

A lot of players are playing the "looking after my families future" card. Whilst teaching their kids that it's ok to accept money off anyone for anything, as long as you get paid son.

Hoboo

More power to them, change is good, the PGA will have to up their game. They don’t control the majors so they’re still an option, sponsors I imagine will have a big say. I can’t see the Masters not inviting DJ Louis or Mickelson for example. As for the human rights **** slinging, its a bit rich coming from a US based organisation.

BattleCorp

I'd go work for whoever paid me the most money. Why wouldn't golfers do the same?

mcburns07

Apart from the Saudi issue, they’re complaining they can’t play on both tours, what’s the angle there? PGA said play where you want but you can’t play our tour if you are, as is their right.

BattleCorp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181330#Comment_119181330

The Saudi's aren't Putin or Isis. I woudn't work for either of those.

Would I work for Trump, I don't see why not. I don't agree with most of the crap that comes out of his mouth but why would that stop me from working from him? I've worked for bigger w@nkers in my time.

The Saudi's aren't a bunch of angels but we are happy enough to take their oil and gas, what's the difference in taking their golf money?

Trawler1954

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058249550/golfers-taking-saudi-money-and-splitting-the-sport

Can't understand why th PGA should have either a monoply or cartel on Golfers !

Richard Hillman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181350#Comment_119181350

The Saudi's are ISIS FFS. They were funding them for years and are of the same branch of Islam. They fund the wars throughout Africa with Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram. They are actively committing a genocide in Yemen. They are worse than Putin, and they are ISIS.

The pretty much give North Korea a run for the most evil regime on the planet.

olestoepoke

This is golfs version of the attempted and failed European Super Cup, well could develop that way. McDowell's statement about the Saudi's wanting to use this tournament to be better or some nonsense like that was laughable. Tell the truth Graeme, you just love money and they made you an offer you couldn't refuse, stop the pretence it's as false as your accent.

BattleCorp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181358#Comment_119181358

Well, just to split hairs, legally I am not allowed to work for ISIS as they are a terrorist organisation. I am not sure about the legality of working for Putin.

Maybe I should have worded my sentence to include a reference to legal work to humour those in this thread who are pedantic.

standardg60

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2o9ak7

Whatever about having to fund them by buying their oil, taking it for no reason other than pure greed says a lot about where these peoples morals are found.

Pawwed Rig

I see no difference between the golfers and the Newcastle/ManCity, Formula 1 etc. Hard to see why the golfers are given a tough time but the others get a free pass.

Personally I think they are all equally scummy.

Professional golf is and has always been about money.

All this horseshit about the Azaleas at Amen corner and Peter Aliss waxing on about how things used to be was manufactured after the fact.

That a load of them have exposed themselves as hypocritical greedy counts surprises absolutely nobody.

Muahahaha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181378#Comment_119181378

Well I suppose this new Saudi tour is proving they dont. But when we watch high level sports we want to see the best compete against the best and by the looks of it that will no longer be the case. So ultimately the sport of golf gets diluted when some good players are off on another tour. It might be great for Mickleson, Dustin Johnson and Greg Norman who is leading it with them getting shed loads of cash but its not great for the fans of the sport seeing the field weakened.

So for me its not about the PGA having a monopoly, its more about the sport no longer having the best players competing against each other and it being weakened overall.

skimpydoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181576#Comment_119181576

Nobody should get a free pass.

MakersMark

Anyone running a car on or heating their home with oil based products is financing the Saudi regime.

They wouldn't have the money to sponsor these tournaments if we didn't finance them.

smurfjed

@Richard Hillman

[i]They are actively committing a genocide in Yemen.[\i]

Actively? I think that you will find that there is a peace agreement which has stropped fighting for the last 3 months and was recently extended for another 2 months. But what would you have them do? Should they have allowed the Houthis to take over the whole country? What other solutions existed 7 years ago?

And you also appear to be saying that Saudi nationals were doing exactly the same as Irish/US nationals were doing as they supported NORAID.

smurfjed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181576#Comment_119181576

If you want to stop taking Middle Eastern money, then stop it for ALL, politicians (ex), businesses, exports, imports, golfers, horse industry, transport industry, football, musicians, F1, Dakar rally, Formula E, World Cup, not to mention companies in Europe that have huge amounts of ME money invested in them such as Uber, Soft Bank, Eurodisney.

Not really fair to just pick out the golfers.

magicbastarder

There is a quantitative and qualitative difference between filling your car, and taking millions upon millions to help sportswash a country which has a very dodgy human rights record. Most people here would probably be more than happy to fill their car using petrol which did not originate in SA, but in reality don't have any say in where that petrol came from. That's a long way removed from already stinkingly rich people taking eye watering amounts of money to help improve the image of that regime.

olestoepoke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181576#Comment_119181576

Double standards, there was a swift witch hunt of Roman Abromovich and Chelsea because of his ties to Putin. The Ukraine invasion was the flavour of the month and all over the news. Yet the Saudis were allowed to buy Newcastle FC a few months earlier unchallenged all whilst they admitted to the murder of a journalist and beheaded over 80 people in one day.

Rikand

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181413#Comment_119181413

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWRlxSGf_ns

....

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181378#Comment_119181378

They don't but they do have a right to determine that their product is not devalued by members just suiting themselves. That's what this is about, plus a cohort of largely older, already very rich men lining their nests in spectacular fashion. The format looks like a game show anyway and the tacked on team thing is right out of a kids' summer camp.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119182214#Comment_119182214

None of that is part of the definition of a suitable club owner and there are all sorts of other dodgy owners. Abramovich was not hunted out, he was part of a wider group of sanctioned individuals, which was a political not a sporting decision.

Boggles

This is not tournament golf, it's a clown show exhibition roughly based on the game of golf. The names of the teams are hilariously cringe, Ironheads, Stingers, Crushers, Acers, Punch, Hy Flyers. 🤣

This nonsense will be short lived expensive folly, they can't even give away the TV rights.

Nermal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119180601#Comment_119180601

Your apologia for head-chopping terrorism sponsors is quite the contrast next to your numerous posts on the Russia thread.

Why waste so many words? You could have just said 'it's OK when we do it'.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119182909#Comment_119182909

It's not an apologia. I like Saudi behaviour as much as the next person, which is to say not very much.

Do I recognize Saudi is a lynchpin for global energy security? Sure I do.

We regrettably have to play ball (that goes for every country that likes to keep their show on the road) with them. Unless you're suggesting some class of an invasion of the country overturning the royal family.

If you want to bring Russia into it, the Saudi's have never done something as spectacularly dangerous as attempting an annextion of a UN member while threatening nuclear war every other week.

The Saudis get up to other sh*tbaggery, but I can see the distinction and scale of difference in danger to the world order between the two. Can you?

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119180897#Comment_119180897

Mickleson though has a huge gambling problem. I heard an interview with the journo who broke his comments on the Saudi regime. He reckons big phil has wasted a serious amount of his net wealth on gambling and doesn't have anywhere near the 400million left. In fact this guy reckons it could be closer to 10-12 million all said and done.

Still though you'd have more respect for a guy if he just said he was doing for the money.

One thing that strikes me is do we start brandishing footballers the same who take money or teachers / nurses /. tech guys who get paid huge money etc.

Nermal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119183076#Comment_119183076

"It's OK when we do it"

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119183132#Comment_119183132

Who's "we" in this scenario?

valoren

It's easy for the likes of McIlroy and Justin Thomas to pontificate as they are elite players who enjoy guaranteed financial security i.e. even if their game deserted them then they’re set for life. They don't need the money but some joe schmoe who is struggling to keep his card by earning half a million dollars, who needs to make cuts, who stresses over booking (or not booking flights and hotels) for the Booz Allen Classic might have his head turned by the prospect of financial security.

You might empathise with such players who have an opportunity to quit their grinding but there is obviously some extreme cognitive dissonance going on with those other elite players who are already financially secure who have joined up about the source of funding. These guys are professionals who will seek out the maximum amount of money they can in the shortest amount of time possible even if it that means disregarding morals or scruples. The PGA commissioner saying their decision was money based was pathetic. Well, duh. These are professionals, they play to make wonga, as much of it as possible. I guess to have become an elite golfer in an individual sport in the first place means possessing a healthy dose of self-centredness and self-absorption in order to excel which can lead one to be capable of mentally disregarding events such as Jamal Khashoggi’s murder which they were not involved with. Mickelson at least is self-aware enough of what the "scary motherf*cker" Saudis are all about but he thinks he can enforce change on the PGA Tour by embracing them. It's classic cognitive dissonance i.e. I'm only taking their $200 million because I feel I can do some good for my professional peers on the PGA Tour. Nobody buys it but in the end money talks even if it means selling out your reputation. Greg Norman, the template for the “make as much dosh as possible” professional, has always tried to form a world tour. I guess his dissonance is that he’s allowing for more options for professionals but he’s pocketing mind boggling amounts of money in doing so.

rogber

In the Russia thread Scholz is frequently portrayed as the devil for putting German economic interests over human rights when it comes to Russian oil and gas.

I don't see how these sports people are morally any better, none of them need the money, whether it's golfers or footballers or Formula 1 teams. They take the benefits and ignore the atrocities

But when it comes right down to it, I suspect that very few of us can have a clean conscience when we look at, say, our consumer decisions.

Money will often trump moral values, always has, always will

Muahahaha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119183272#Comment_119183272

yeah but there is a difference between us having no choice but to buy Saudi products at the petrol pump and sports people pro-actively taking money off them, they dont have to do that when they have alternatives to earn a living. We as yet dont have a viable alternative to oil so the only choice is to use it or not be able to work, go to the supermarket, etc, its a bit of a non-choice when it comes to general living.

But I do agree with you, money often trumps morals. This is just a particularly naked version of it.

kirving

I can see the difficult decision for players who are objectively relatively wealthy compared to Joe Soap, but are scraping to make tournaments regularly. Saudi money might make the difference between buying your own kids houses and supporting them for life, and building permanent wealth that lasts for generations.

Overall though, the responsibility for our reliance on morally bankrupt regimes for our energy needs is the fault of respective western governments.

Some of it our course in is down to technology (electric car batteries, the cost of wind turbines, solar PV efficiency, etc.) but in Ireland for example, for a long time we failed to insulate our buildings properly, failed to encourage people into more energy efficient apartments, failed to build large scale public transport, failed to even consider nuclear power and failed to even tax cars in a sensible manner.

The sooner we become energy independent, the better for all of us.

NIMAN

Love how the recent radio debates on this was all about golf selling itself out to dodgy folk.

Why was there no such outrage when the likes of Newcastle, Man City and Barca (More than a club my ar$e) sold their souls for money?

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119186826#Comment_119186826

Ah come on.

The Saudi takeover of Newcastle united had loads of outrage about the background of who was buying the club, and it was a massive media story.

Man City and Barca not so much, because we have not yet come to see other gulf nations in the same way as we do Saudi Arabia.

The sums of money involved are insane,and we have plenty in this state would bend over backwards for saudi money....

I remember being lambasted,and being called all sorts for saying waterford/state shouldnt be bending over backwards to get saudi money to develop the north quays here (thankfully they called it off-at a late stage)

But for the golfers involved,they mostly dont need the money and its utter greed driving this....what can be done with 400million,that cant be done with 200million🤔

Muahahaha

Was just listening to Off the Ball discuss it and one of them reckons it is a geopolitical move by the Saudis to eventually seize control of the entire sport of golf from the Americans. Interesting take that probably isnt too far wide of the mark, what we are seeing now is the thin edge of the wedge with most players recruited past their prime. But in years to come they are likely to convince more and more of the worlds top players to sign up.

Montage of Feck

So far it's only a bunch of wash outs blatantly signing on for the paycheck.

Montage of Feck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119182088#Comment_119182088

Ironically the Dakar rally had to move to South America due to Arab funded Islamic extremism, and now takes place in Arabia due to Arab funding.

.

valoren

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119188373#Comment_119188373

Dustin Johnson, DeChambeau washouts?

Muahahaha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119188373#Comment_119188373

Mainly but they did recruit Byrson deChambeau who won a US Open as recently as 2020, he is in his prime

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119188416#Comment_119188416

There was another irony about that Dakar rally being held in Saudi. The 12 women who MBS had imprisoned for driving a car as a protest on Saudi women not being allow to drive were housed in a prison in the desert. The Dakar rally route went within a few hundred meters of the prison. There were females driving cars in the race who were literally passing the prison where 12 Saudi women were locked up for driving cars.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119188809#Comment_119188809

DeChambeau is a giant fúcking bellend.

Since his open win because of apparent hip and wrist injuries he hasn't done much, doesn't bode well for a guy that relies on heavy hitting.

He is not even in top 20 and just this week said he wasn't going to jump ship.

Sounds like he has, maybe because he was told he is passed his prime.

Johnson is a strange one, he definitely had it in him to attempt the quadruple and write his name into the history books, he says he will still compete in the majors (if he is invited) but I don't think you can compete at the highest level playing exhibition sort of golf.

TBF to him though, he came out and said he is doing for the money. So fair play to him for that.

Will be interesting to see if they get lifetime bans though and the level of regret from some of them when this clown show goes títs up.

valoren

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119189692#Comment_119189692

It's kind of hard to do much when you're injured.