U.S. Open 2022: LIV Golf could force PGA to reassess traditions

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

Golf is in the midst of a highly contentious split. The upstart LIV International Series, funded by the Saudi Arabia sovereign investment fund, has rocked the sport to its antique bones.

Heading into Thursday’s U.S. Open at Brookline, no one can quite agree on what it all means and how it is going to play out, and there are nuanced variations on the ethical rights and wrongs of professional athletes taking big money from a regime accused of awful things.

Read a bunch of different takes and you’ll get several points of view and one consensus – this is bad for golf.

But does that theory even hold water? What follows is an uncomfortable thought to have and a somewhat painful sentence to write.

Yet it should not be entirely dismissed that this shake-up and the animosity between the rivaling parties, the verbal pot shots taken by the players, and yes, the Saudi money, might actually turn out to be some kind of positive for a game that has reveled in keeping things exactly the same for a long, long time.

The moral side of the LIV dilemma has been addressed, often, and with some excellent perspectives, by a number of fine writers and commentators. It’s a grim topic, with the gruesome murder (according to U.S. intelligence reports) of journalist Jamal Khashoggi merely the tip of the Saudi government’s alleged indiscretions.

If you are of the thought that the source of the financial backing for LIV, which had its opening event in London last week and will be an eight-stop event series paying out $225 million in year one, is proof that golf has sold its soul, I won’t fight you on the point.

And yet — purely personal opinion here — it is deeply complicated. For if we are going to look deeply and make judgments on where the LIV backing comes from, then it shouldn’t stop with Saudi Arabia and its Public Investment Fund. When it comes to government involvement in sports, things get tricky.

LIV is not the first or only sports competition where the concept of “sportswashing” has been brought up. World Cups and Olympic Games (especially involving China and Russia) have seen similar issues rise.

Whether it is possible to see past the LIV controversy and even look at the raw product objectively is up to the individual. If LIV had happened without the Saudi money but from some other source, the optics would have been totally different.

The format — three days, no cut, tight TV windows — is sound. The shotgun start allows fans to keep track of who is doing best among players like Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia in real-time, instead of waiting hours for everyone to finish. The payout structure addressed the unique golfing quirk that sees PGA Tour players who finish just below the halfway line after two days go home out of pocket, without any kind of paycheck.

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