Even by the dizzying standards of men’s professional golf, American Dustin Johnson has had a bumper year. For his efforts during the breakaway LIV tour’s inaugural season, he pocketed US$36 million at an hourly rate, by Associated Press’ calculations, of US$746,000. Or, to really break it down, US$26,302 per shot. That was on top of a reported US$125 million sign-on fee.
You may be wondering who in their right mind would pay a golfer that sort of money for performing well in eight events (14 are scheduled this year) that hardly anyone watched and even fewer gave two hoots about. The answer, ultimately, is Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, colloquially known as MBS, the 37-year-old Crown Prince, Prime Minister and de facto leader of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
LIV (the Roman numerals signify the 54 holes played, in contrast to the traditional 72 in professional tournaments) is funded by the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, at US$620 billion one of the half-dozen biggest in the world. The league is the golfing component of the “sportswashing” campaign initiated after MBS unveiled his “Vision 2030″ masterplan for transforming Saudi Arabia.
It’s estimated that the fund has splashed out US$1.5 billion since 2016 on various sporting projects and sponsorships such as the world’s richest horse race, world heavyweight boxing championship bouts, Formula One racing and investments in the top tiers of English and Spanish football.
The bid to sponsor the upcoming Fifa Women’s World Cup foundered on opposition from co-hosts Australia and New Zealand. Their obvious objection was that a country that subjugates women is an inappropriate sponsor of a women’s event. (In 2018, Saudi women were granted the right to drive but remain subject to guardianship laws that reduce them to vassals of their fathers, husbands or other male relatives.)
Obscene wealth
But for the Saudis, that’s the whole point. Sportswashing is intended to soften the kingdom’s image and deflect attention away from its treatment of women, the LGBTQ+ community and migrant workers, its prominent role in the Yemeni civil war – the United Nations estimates almost 400,000 have been killed or died in the resultant famine – and its ferocious persecution of dissidents at home and abroad, most notoriously the 2018 assassination of expatriate journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Depending on your circumstances and point of view, the money on offer in LIV is goofy or obscene. Johnson is a genuine superstar – only Tiger Woods and LIV chief executive Greg Norman have spent longer atop the world golf rankings – but 11 other players also made more than US$8 million last season. That’s almost a quarter of a roster that features more virtual unknowns and has-beens than household names.
US-based Kiwi Danny Lee, a recent defector from the PGA Tour, has shaken the money tree, collecting NZ$6.3 million for winning the most recent LIV event. In some respects, Lee, 32, is a typical LIV capture: although precocious (in 2008, he became the youngest US amateur champion), he didn’t progress to anything approaching stardom, winning just once on the PGA Tour and barely registering at major tournaments. Indeed, he was probably noted mainly for the frequency with which he withdrew from events.
Chips and barbs
LIV players have been banned from competing on the PGA Tour, although that’s subject to a legal challenge. However, the four majors – the Masters, the (British) Open, the US Open and the US PGA Championship – have their own participation criteria. Thus, all eyes will be on the famed Augusta National course in Georgia, home of the Masters, over Easter, when 16 LIV rebels, including six past champions, will line up against the establishment’s finest, spearheaded by the current top three players in the world – American Scottie Scheffler, Spaniard Jon Rahm and Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy.
Given the schism has led to multiple breaches of golf’s unofficial code of decorum – “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow professional” – observers will be on the look-out for spicy interactions. Three-times Masters champion Phil Mickelson, the first big fish landed by LIV and something of a proselytiser, was recently dubbed a “nutbag” by fellow veteran Fred Couples. McIlroy has been a vocal PGA poster boy, trading barbs with LIV’s Patrick Reed and Sergio Garcia, formerly a close friend. All five will be at Augusta (and all but McIlroy at the past champions dinner that precedes the tournament) though it’s assumed the antagonists will be kept well apart.
The establishment has more to lose from this convergence. If an LIV player wins, it would undercut the PGA Tour’s insistence that it has the best players and by far the better product. One wonders, though, whether the LIV contingent will be sufficiently battle-hardened on their regimen of no-cut, three-day events on significantly less challenging courses than the beautiful but beguiling Augusta.
It seems unlikely that LIV’s apparent strategy of making journeymen rich beyond their wildest dreams will win this war. There will be more defections, but the PGA Tour has moved aggressively to close the money gap and lock in its stars. It recently circulated a document purporting to demonstrate that the total compensation of a 2023 rookie whose career matches that of Jim Furyk, a three-decade stalwart of the PGA Tour, will be US$620 million. Furyk’s on-course earnings are US$71.5 million
So far, LIV has lured two top-10 players, Johnson and Australian Cameron Smith. Unless it can hoover up many more of the best – as Kerry Packer did when he took on the Australian Cricket Board over TV rights in the 1970s – it’s hard to see how it can gain traction with the public, the media, sponsors and advertisers.
LIV now has a broadcasting deal with the CW Network, the 25th most-watched network in the US, but had to give the rights away – the parties are splitting advertising revenue and LIV is covering production costs. The PGA pulls in US$700 million a year in broadcasting fees. And even for run-of-the-mill events when the stars don’t come out to play, its TV audience is eight times bigger than LIV’s.
Making the cut
It’s not clear how LIV works in sportswashing terms. Football-mad Geordies (perhaps a tautology) no doubt appreciate the Saudis’ investment in iconic but under-performed Newcastle United, but who’s uplifted by LIV? Apart, of course, from a few dozen golfers, most of whom must pinch themselves at regular intervals.
And even those for whom money is no object must eventually tire of frittering it away. One wonders how the Saudi fund’s bean counters now feel about the US$325 million reportedly lavished on Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau, who between them have hardly put together a decent round since joining LIV. Early on, Mickelson supposedly described his paymasters as “scary motherf---ers.” You’d think that perspective would be a strong incentive to produce your best stuff on their behalf; apparently not.
The aforementioned Packer made a killing by selling the Channel 9 network to fellow Australian magnate Alan Bond for a fortune and buying it back three years later for a comparative song. He later remarked, “You only get one Alan Bond in your lifetime and I’ve had mine.” If and when the Saudis decide to cut their losses, the LIV players might well be inclined to channel Packer, swapping out Bond for Mohammed bin Salman.
