The Golf Thread

[Liverpool]

it seems Saudi are looking to rival Dubai as a golf destination, they have loads of space to build interesting courses rather than the flat of Dubai, big hotels. Lots of money in golf tourism as one strand to this.

I don't see life in them building sporting golf teams to be sold, just not comparable to football or any team sport imo.

The PGA often bully the European/Asia tour and are no angels and this has given a kick up the arse. Shame its taken the Saudis and not the wave of the Tiger era to do it.

I don't see how Saudis can make a return on it unless they screw over future players when they have a total monopoly on the sport, there is no alternative/player rights.

The fact 3 people from the PGA have decided on it and there is no member/wider vote is wild. Jay Monahan should be sacked but no doubt he's making some serious cash instead.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Whole thing is mental.

Money talks


Not a big watcher of pro golf though I do enjoy playing the odd round in Kinsale or Adare ( though I play golf with the grace of a hurler or hockey player. Only thing I am good at is putting, everything else is a war of attrition )


I do at times struggle to understand the stands people make within the sport. A daughter of someone I know plays in the Pro-Am tournaments and makes a good living from it.

She is very anti LIV and anti Saudi involvement, has played alongside McIlroy, has played with McIlroy and other such names when on their own time in Adare, the US and in Dubai.

Yet has also gone and played in Middle Eastern backed tournaments in Dubai and similar locations.


Maybe it is a case of picking your battles.

[Liverpool]

Whole thing is mental.

[Irishnev]

[ame="https://twitter.com/ballsdotie/status/1666439938819121157"]https://twitter.com/ballsdotie/status/1666439938819121157[/ame]

[ame="https://twitter.com/skysportsnews/status/1666442020389281793"]https://twitter.com/skysportsnews/status/1666442020389281793[/ame]

[ame="https://twitter.com/skysportsnews/status/1666445349165096961"]https://twitter.com/skysportsnews/status/1666445349165096961[/ame]

[Pablo]

I honestly can't think of a single LIV thing I would bring across to whatever the hell this new tour is going to be called.

Teams are pure cringe.
Three rounds - no thanks
Shotgun start - prefer seeing everyone finish the course as designed
Presentation is also pure cringe.

[Shaggy]

"the fans will get what they want" - what ****ing planet is he on? Not a single golf fans gives a flying **** about this contrived team nonsense.

[Irishnev]

[ame="https://twitter.com/troncarternlu/status/1666405114490286080"]https://twitter.com/troncarternlu/status/1666405114490286080[/ame]

[ChesterDave]

Ugh. The franchise nonsense will destroy golf like it is destroying cricket.

[Alex]

Never playing golf again

Same, dont think I can watch it anymore either.

[Doc_Piptorious]

I dream to be in a position I could swing a club.

Technically you still can swing a golf club at someone whilst in a hospital bed. Food for thought that.

[BobTheCharmer]

I dream to be in a position I could swing a club.

[Harv]

Never playing golf again

[BobTheCharmer]

What a disgrace. To not consult the very players that stayed loyal against all the temptations presented to them. Rahm and Rory must feel like throwing their clubs away. If I was either of those and walked up to Phil Mickelson I'd smack him hard in the face for being such a smug arrogant American. I think a lot of the soul of golf died. It's a money game just like everything else is becoming.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Another sport that at it's highest level is becoming nothing more than a sports wash vehicle

The Middle East has figured out that it does not need wars to take on the West, it just needs to buy it.

[fidget]

This is a great post made by somebody I knowan on another forum

"Today it was announced that the PGA would be merging with LIV Golf. This is the who, what, how, and why from my perspective.

The PGA Tour stuff is a confluence of capitalism and sports, and when I say capitalism here, I’m specifically talking about the owner vs worker relationship, and the ability of the owner to extract profits via that relationship.

The PGA is an association of golf professionals. Think of it like a union or a guild. It’s members receive a “tour card” based upon meritocratic achievements that allows them to participate in the tournaments that the PGA promotes and organizes itself, or has contracted with outside partners. The players earn / win a portion of the prize pools that are funded by sponsorship deals and TV contracts that the PGA negotiates as a single entity.

Imagine if the MLB, NHL, or the NFL did not have franchise owners. And instead the leagues were “owned” by their players’ unions who managed all the business aspects of the leagues, with the players keeping all of the revenue for themselves (after paying for operations and administrative costs). That hypothetical is pretty much what the PGA is.

Another point of comparison would be UFC, which like golf is an individual sport. The UFC, like the PGA, organizes and promotes its events, and negotiates TV rights and sponsorship deals. The difference being that those deals are made at the behest and benefit of the owners, and there is no UFC fighters’ union. The owners control how the revenue is distributed. UFC is worth billions of dollars, and that valuation is based upon the premise that because of its relative position of power with its workers, it will be able to continue to reap huge profits.

LIV Golf is owned by the PIF (Public Investment Fund), the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. The PIF has a broad range of investments, which are premised on the core capitalist tenet: what if the PIF, as owners, took a cut of all the earnings.

The members of the PGA don’t have a need for an “owner” that takes a cut of the revenue. And all the revenue comes either directly or indirectly because of the interest and attention of the fans, and their willingness to pay for the product, and watch ads during the broadcasts.

Therefore, LIV needed to accomplish two goals: 1) gain the interest of the fans (which entails having the best golfers participate in their tournaments), and 2) gain enough leverage versus the players’ “trade union”, the PGA, that they would accept having LIV insert themselves, and their extraction of profits, into their business equation.

So, LIV offered boatloads of money to top golfers. They allegedly offered Tiger Woods $1 billion, and he turned them down. I don’t have the exact numbers on all the players that left PGA for LIV, but a rough example would be…hey PGA golfer X, you made $8 million last year on the PGA tour, we’ll give you $100 million right now just to join LIV, and you can still win even more money on top of that. These were godfather type offers. Many players took the bag. Afterall, they’re getting paid! And LIV’s future extraction of profits will come at the expense of future golfers, not themselves.

This splintered the PGA membership, and caused animosity between players. Up next was a looming legal battle between PGA and LIV, that would cost a **** ton of money. LIV, since it is backed by the Saudis has way deeper pockets for the legal battle, and can keep poaching players from the PGA in the meantime.

Getting back to today’s announcement. This is the PGA leadership saying…we probably can’t beat them [LIV], might as well join them. There are still details to be hammered out and negotiated, and this is a battle of millionaires versus billionaires. But now there’s a capitalist boss sitting at the table with the workers, and the boss is gonna get his cut.

LIV has been transparent about its goal:

In an interview with CNBC, LIV Golf Investments President and COO Atul Khosla said the future of LIV Golf is teams and creating franchises that can one day be sold…

“We’re building 12 teams with franchise values, just like any other sport that we fully expect down the road to have a valuation to be sold,” he said. “All of those things will happen in golf that happen in every other sport.”