This week they’re going to change golf for all time. Or, possibly, it’s going to be an irritating midgie bite we’ll all forget about rather quickly.
They managed to get 42 players – they’ll reportedly round up six more this week – to commit to LIV Golf Invitation London at Centurion (which is actually between St Albans and Hemel Hempstead, but that’s clearly not nearly glam enough).
After all our justified impatience, they finally announced the field by email, at 1.20 am, London time. It doesn’t suggest that the shambles is being sorted.
DJ’s change of mind
Official word from RBC:
"As a result of the decisions made by professional golfers Dustin Johnson and Graeme McDowell to play the LIV Golf Invitational Series opener, RBC is terminating its sponsorship agreement with both players. We wish them well in their future endeavours."— Bob Weeks (@BobWeeksTSN) June 1, 2022
But to give credit where it is due, Greg Norman and his team managed to get Dustin Johnson to execute a double-reverse and join the party. Just six weeks after he had pledged his commitment to the PGA Tour.
One wonders what convinced him. A suitably shiny object? More likely just the green stuff – the reported $100 million he was originally promised just went up a suitably few figures.
Good for DJ. He has, as he has said, taken the decision for his family, given they were really struggling on the $75m he’s earned from being a PGA Tour player. Not to mention the millions his wife Paulina stands to inherit from her Dad, NHL legend Wayne Gretzky.
I don’t know about you, but I find multi-millionaire golfers pleading potential poverty during a growing cost of living crisis to be utterly offensive.
Messrs Garcia, Westwood, Poulter, McDowell et al included. It’s no better an excuse to do this than “growing the game” or “I’m not a politician”, guys.
In DJ’s case, it’s even more offensive given the millions he accepted over years from RBC as one of his most loyal sponsors. Only to utterly shaft them the week of their biggest profile event, the Canadian Open.
When his face was on the publicity material all over the St George’s club near Toronto. Classy stuff.
Another spurious narrative
Looking at the entries to the LIV golf event and thinking about the advantages to playing:
1) Money
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2) No drug testingDisadvantages:
1)Complicit in sportswashing
2)Loss of sponsors
3)Loss of access to PGA Tour/champs
4)Loss of contributions to pension fund— Brandel Chamblee (@chambleebrandel) June 2, 2022
Anyway, after “grow the game” didn’t click and “feed the family” is proving utterly spurious, the next narrative LIV is trying to peddle is that they’re groundbreakers and “innovators”.
As we’ve noted before in T2G, the LIV Golf/SGL template is actually someone else’s idea. It was Andy Gardiner of the Premier Golf League (remember them) who came up with the plan for 48-player, no-cut, F1-style team, guaranteed-money golf.
But frankly I’ve never found any element of this format remotely appealing. In T2G’s past we’ve agreed that the relentless grind of 72-hole events needs a bit of a shake-up. But I’m pretty sure this isn’t it.
For a start, you can’t get away from the clear competitive deficit of the shotgun-start, three day tournament. The winning shot will be struck who knows where (you generally know in a 72-hole event).
Even if they ever get around the fact that the Official World Rankings are run by the tours opposing them, LIV’s 54-hole events are unlikely ever to count for points. And you need those points if you want to play the majors.
The team element doesn’t appeal
So much pretence with LIV about how golf ‘needs’ new formats and innovation.
This happens to be a week where that is legitimately happening on @DPWorldTour and @LETgolf with the Scandinavian Mixed, putting men and women on equal footing.
Maybe tune in to the better side of golf— Meghan MacLaren (@meg_maclaren) June 6, 2022
But it’s the team element that grates the most to me. Teams in sport are usually bounded by geographical ties – they’re all from a place. The few that don’t necessarily – F1 for example – have a team culture dating half of a century.
Even those sports that have previously created “artificial” teams – the Indian Premier League in cricket – do it in a sport which already has the team ethic.
Beyond amateurs, the big international team events work in golf. But they’re entirely based on geography. The Ryder Cup would simply not work with arbitrary selections.
The closest we’ve had to that, the “International” in the Presidents Cup linking South Americans, Asians and Australians, has never really worked.
95 per cent of the time, professional golf is an individual game – “individual contractors”, as we’re always told.
I don’t expect golf fans to get worked up about teams drawn at a pre-tournament ballot, then playing effectively a pro-am – an event, as the Dunhill has proved, that really engages no-one but those participating.
Proof of that? Even after the big unveiling of the field, the LIV website at the weekend started giving away tickets for Centurion – previously priced at an incredible £79 a day – for absolutely nothing by way of various “discount codes”.
Obviously take-up wasn’t great (and for those who did, they must feel delighted now).
But that’s unsurprising. You only get something for free if it is basically worthless.
Muirfield in August will be a belter
I can officially confirm that the 21st century has begun. On Monday, I used my mobile in the Honorary Company of Edinburgh Golfers’ clubhouse at Muirfield and was not immediately excommunicated.
Flippancy aside, the transformation in the great clubhouse at Gullane since we were last in there is startling.
Physically, the place has been modernised and updated so well you can barely see the join. In terms of attitude, the change has been just as pronounced.
Muirfield hosts the AIG Women’s Open in August, a venue choice that would be unthinkable less than a decade ago.
Rightly or wrongly Muirfield became the prominent symbol of the single-sex club issue. Probably wrongly – the R&A should have copped much more criticism than the HCEG got.
The dinosaurs are not entirely extinct at Muirfield, as elsewhere. But they’re in such diminishing numbers now that they can be safely disregarded.
The championship in August is going to be a belter. As it should be on one of our very greatest courses.
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