Players pledging their allegiance to the PGA Tour include, as of now, megastars Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm. Greg Norman, LIV’s commissioner and chief executive, said Tiger Woods turned down a “mind-blowingly enormous” offer in the “high nine digits” to join the tour. Most LIV golfers reportedly signed multiyear deals to play a significantly reduced schedule. As part of this spending spree, LIV has signed some of the most famous golfers in the world, including Phil Mickelson (for a reported $200 million) and Dustin Johnson (for reportedly up to $150 million), as well as Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed, among others. The LIV tour includes eight events a year, with smaller player pools competing in truncated tournaments-54 holes over three days. LIV’s structure is simple: More money divided among fewer golfers for less work, bankrolled by the Saudi regime. You can probably see where this is going. The winner of this year’s Masters Tournament made $2.7 million. Charl Schwartzel won the event and collected a total of $4.75 million for his efforts, on top of whatever guaranteed money he received for joining the new tour. Let’s back up: Last week, LIV Golf, an upstart tour backed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, held its first ever tournament. We’re all stuck here, captive observers of the sport’s looming civil war, forever repeating every golfer’s enduring, misguided mantra: This’ll get fixed. That is the Catch-22 of this particular obsession: Only those who deeply love the sport swear it off forever, which means no one ever successfully abandons it.
#GL GOLF PROBLEMS WITH TOURNIMENT FULL#
If you have read almost two full paragraphs about a week-old bureaucratic tiff between two professional golf entities, you know you are stuck. Golf is a game set up for frustration and obsession, and the professional version of it has always reflected these impulses-an imperfect product housing a game you cannot leave. This scenario is purely hypothetical, of course. An hour later, you’re back online reviewing Adam Hadwin’s advanced putting metrics in preparation for next week’s action. Maybe you have invested so much financial and emotional capital into Hideki Matsuyama’s performance at the Players Championship that when he withdraws from the event on the morning it’s set to begin, you swear off not just betting on golf, but following the sport altogether, announcing via group text your decision to abandon all of your gambling pools. It is not fair to compare golf to drugs because drugs are cheaper. The game is not for everyone, but it is for you-it is in your bloodstream. The next day, you’re at the range trying to fix the problem, which, incidentally, never gets fixed. Deep down, you know this because you’ve tried, walking to the cart at dusk after chunking the easiest pitch shot of your month, muttering under your breath that this is it. Here’s the problem: You cannot quit golf.
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