Georgie Bingham: What the hell just happened
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan leads a moment of silence to honor George Floyd during the first round of the Charles Schwab Challenge on June 11, 2020 at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Golf is maddening, it can be stuffy, it can be slow, and it also has the ability to bring us to our knees in an instant. But for all intent and purposes, we cherish golf for its difficulty, its prestigiousness and its history.
Today was a dark day for golf as the PGA Tour and DP World Tour announced a collaboration with the PIF, who own LIV golf. I am not being overdramatic. What is this fresh hell? I wonder whether as they folded like a house of cards both entities stopped to think about what they’ve just done to golf and what they look like to the rest of the world. They just happily got into bed with their sworn enemy who’ve successfully completed a sportswashing project. Bravo money, you win.
I’d like to remind you of the PGA Tour’s description of the arrival of LIV Golf last year; “using the sport of golf to ‘sportswash’ the Saudi government’s deplorable reputation for human rights abuses.” Apparently that is fine now, reverse lights on, money wins. The Tour may see this as keeping their friends close and their enemies closer but they can’t ever really justify this decision or take it back and for that I am sad. Players like Rory McIlroy stood up for their tour, and spoke of their own morals and they’ve been rewarded with this; the sad truth that money is worth more than anything else.
This is a fold; it says to me that the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour had no stomach for the the legal fight against LIV - so they’ve taken the cash - I hope they are braced for the shit storm they’re about to unleash. For people who don’t care who funds the top level of our game, whoop-de-do for you - this may mean bigger purses and the ‘best’ players get to play against each other but this is a total sell-out to those of us who feel that sport shouldn’t be funded by dark money.
“If you don’t care for righteous sentiment over sportswashing then cool, you also won’t care about this. I care. The top end of golf just pissed on its own shoes.”
Sportwashing is a complex business; I watched as the Premier League allowed team owners from nation states - selling its soul gradually and sadly - it’s never going to be able to reverse that now. Sportswashing is everywhere - races, series, tournaments, fights - but this? This is the annexing of an entire sport. This isn’t just a team or an event; this is elbowing your way into the party and then buying off all the birthday boys’ mates to celebrate you instead. I’m embarrassed for golf, this is unprecedented.
If you don’t care for righteous sentiment over sportswashing then cool, you also won’t care about this. I care. The top end of golf just pissed on its own shoes. Golf just ate itself and we are all stuck in a lift with Greg Norman and his sanctimonious smugness. Marvellous.
Georgie Bingham, broadcaster and journalist, writes a bi-weekly column for The Cut Stuff. She’s golf obsessed. She’s ready to go behind the tour.
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