What no one seems to emphasize is that the PGA TOUR provided these defectors headed by Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Pat Perez, Louis Oosthuizen, Patrick Reed and Sergio Garcia, the opportunity and a place to play against the best in the world, to develop their games and earn large sums of money. This group personally banked over $380 million in prize money, not including hundreds of millions of dollars more from sponsorships and endorsements. The PGA TOUR, which by the way is owned by the players themselves, made them very rich men. This cannot end happily. Most disturbing to me, some of the professionals choosing to leave the PGA Tour are indeed favorites of mine, but they won’t admit it’s a simple case of “Gimme the Money.” They skate around what LIV Golf is about deflecting attention from the human rights record of a misogynistic regime that happens to hold control over a significant portion of the world’s oil, not to mention having probable links to terrorists, such as those perpetrating the 9-11 massacre. Seeking other opinions, I talked with a veteran woman player who’s thinking surely reflects many others. “Why can’t these players go after the money? Everyone can try to find a new job that pays better. The Saudis faults and treatment of women are not on the players’ minds just the fact they can play a lot less and earn a lot more. After all its just golf.” It’s just golf is one point of view, but it ignores the reason the Saudi’s are putting up such immense sums of money with no hope of making a profit, hoping to make us forget the truth.
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