Lefty landed on the precise aspect of historical past.
Phil Mickelson led the cost of PGA Tour gamers who jumped to Greg Norman’s Saudi-backed LIV Golf. Mickelson, by no means one to be shy about his opinions, made it clear he made the transfer as a result of it stored his pockets phat.
With Tuesday’s introduced plan to merge the PGA Tour and LIV, Mickelson and the opposite golfers who took that monstrous bag of soiled Saudi money hit PowerBall, or PowerPlayBall. They guess all of it on which model of golf was going to in the end prevail. And gained.
“Awesome day today,” Mickelson tweeted, with a smiley face emoji.
The Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund (PIF) created LIV Golf with the aim to power a merger with the PGA Tour. That’s precisely what occurred Tuesday. A brand new golf international entity, which doesn’t actually have a title, will supplant all of the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, and every other mens’s {golfing} physique that doesn’t have a few billion in reserve to cease this tidal wave.
Norman stated this was coming earlier a number of months in the past. “You can’t have both,” Norman advised Golf Magazine. He responded “yes” when requested a few doable peaceable answer to this. Even former President Trump took a victory lap in his golf cart. Trump’s programs performed host to a number of LIV occasions.
Think AFL/NFL on worldwide monetary steroids.
The PIF will pour billions into this new single international golf entity. The PGA Tour itself retains its nonprofit standing. But its industrial entities are swallowed up on this deal.
The Saudis have already purchased into sports activities through F1, professional soccer, the WWE, and different retailers.
The head of the Saudi PIF (Yasir Al-Rumayyan) is the brand new international golf entity’s chairman. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan can be his caddie. And CEO. The PGA Tour will appoint a majority of the board and maintain many of the voting curiosity. The new world order will embrace golf in all its kinds, on and off the course.
All the litigation between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf goes away.
The dangerous blood between professional golfers doesn’t.
Dustin Johnson, Bryson Dechambeau, Brooks Koepka, and Mickelson have been among the many notables who jumped to LIV Golf. Some pocketed 9 figures to take action.
The golfers who selected to combat for the PGA Tour’s honor solely to be offered out with out warning by Monahan have been left holding an empty bag.
“I love finding out morning news on Twitter,” posted PGA Tour star Collin Morikawa.
Talk about “suckers and losers.”
Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods dutifully defended the PGA Tour for the ideas upon which it allegedly stood. Now they’ll be cashing the identical Saudi-backed checks as everybody else.
They held the ethical excessive floor in opposing the Saudis, who helped carry us 9/11 amongst different atrocities. Of course, that floor was shaky. FedEx, which is the title sponsor of the PGA Tour and pumps roughly $75 million in prize cash to the Tour, has its personal partnership with the Saudi authorities.
The PGA Tour lastly realized it might not be capable of outspend LIV Golf. Once LIV gamers began to win majors – Koepka on the PGA Championship – the Tour’s flaws by way of high quality have been additional uncovered.
Koepka has been on a roll currently, cheering on his Miami Heat and Florida Panthers within the postseason. Tuesday, he chirped at NBC-Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee, among the many most-vocal LIV critics.
“Welfare check on Chamblee,” Koepka tweeted.
The PGA Tour, like each different professional sports activities entity, has lengthy championed regardless of the prevailing social winds demanded. On June 1, the PGA Tour tweeted a video celebrating PRIDE month. “The golf community welcomes all to the game we love during PRIDE month and every month.”
In Saudi Arabia, homosexuality is against the law. Gays are topic to imprisonment, flogging, deportation, and chemical castration. Good luck with homosexual marriage, by no means thoughts “trans rights.”
We’re undecided how the PGA Tour plans to sq. its present views on PRIDE month with these of their new Saudi overlords. But as we realized three years in the past with the Red Sox, all of the “Black Lives Matter” banners on planet Earth don’t imply a rattling factor whenever you end in final place after letting Mookie Betts stroll.
What about feminine golfers? Women couldn’t function cars in Saudi Arabia till 2018. Will they be capable of drive on a par-5 if this entity co-opts the LPGA Tour?
When LIV Golf got here to Greater Boston final 12 months, a gaggle of 9/11 households protested, accusing the Saudis of “sports washing.” Tuesday, 9/11 Families United stated they have been “betrayed” by Monahan. They weren’t the one ones.
Monahan is from Belmont. He stated he is aware of two households who misplaced family members on 9/11.
During an interview with Jim Nantz a 12 months in the past Monday, Monahan’s message to these gamers who jumped to LIV was this: “Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”
Who’s sorry now, Jay?
The hypocrisy stinks all the way in which to Pebble Beach.
It mustn’t shock anybody that Monahan as soon as labored for Fenway Sports Group.
Monahan advised CNBC this deal was all about “capital,” “unity” and the “game of golf” being higher for it.
It’s been greater than 35 years since Gordon Gekko defined one of many two primal human feelings in “Wall Street.”
“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit,” Gekko (Michael Douglas) stated in “Wall Street” utilizing the phrases of Oliver Stone.
“Greed … will save that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.”
The jury continues to be out on the USA.
It is crystal-clear greed gained when it got here to golf.
Bill Speros (@RealOBF and @BillSperos) may be reached at [email protected].
Source: www.bostonherald.com