We can all wave our arms in anger and take the moral high ground but eventually we will become desensitised to everything that should cause us to wave our arms in anger and take the moral high ground.
Scrolling through social media, we all know accounts that post about Gaza daily and other atrocities across the world, including Saudi Arabia. But we are all guilty of letting it pass us by and letting it fade into all the other brain mushing content we consume.
Sportswashing is just another word for normalisation. Golf, football, Formula One, boxing and snooker have all been colonised by Saudi Arabia where eventually the billions of riches thrown about by PIF is enough to buy silence or at least change the narrative.
One could argue should players boycott the PGA Tour in light of recent events but the fact of the matter is that there is very little “clean” money being pocketed these days so it all blends into the same mind-numbing crap. Hard to say either LIV or the PGA Tour provides a value for money product though.
LIV Golf will embark on its fifth season since its inception in 2022. Built as a disruptor to the mainstream PGA and DP World Tour, it promised to revolutionise the game of golf and attract many of the world’s best players.
The fact of the matter is that it hasn’t… not really and one has to wonder where this tour is actually going. Approximately $5 billion has been spent by the PIF only for it to end up doing what everybody else is doing. 72 holes… A name change might be next on the agenda.
LIV Golf suffered a major blow last month in Brooks Koepka announcing he was quitting the Saudi backed tour and looking through the current roster for this year, the circuit has two superstars, a few very good players and a lot of has beens.
Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau are the only two big name players who are still relevant in the game with Tyrrell Hatton and Joaquin Niemann coming in close behind. Tom McKibbin and David Puig are the shining lights of the young players LIV have tried to recruit over the last couple of seasons but while the roster is littered with major champions and former world number ones, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Louis Oosthuizen, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer are over the hill and God knows what has happened to Cam Smith?
Koepka’s departure is damaging for the tour. They have lost a five-time major champion – one of which he won while part of LIV as has DeChambeau – and a player who can stand alongside Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler as the best players in the post Tiger era. If he can get back to his best that’s a pretty mouthwatering big three as golf still searches for its next big rivalry.
Even so, at the moment, he has become something of a forgotten man. Remember, he won five majors before McIlroy. Yet at last year’s Irish Open he didn’t get much of a following. In the main, LIV served as a money-grab for Koepka who had concerns over a persistent knee injury at the time.
Sure, he won the PGA Championship in 2023, but he has missed four of his last ten major championship cuts and hasn’t posted a top-10 since. LIV Golf has damaged his major prospects as it has of Rahm who only really contended at last year’s PGA Championship for a brief period against Scheffler.
Perhaps LIV has acknowledged that by moving to 72-holes but the reality is that while you may be playing well on LIV Golf, trying to shift your preparation from 54 to 72 holes is very difficult in a major environment.
Pádraig Harrington always says you should be preparing for the final round (Sunday) you don’t want to be burned out by Thursday. Even take the famous phrases that the Masters doesn’t begin until the back nine on Sunday or any major doesn’t begin until Sunday, the first three days are about jockeying for position. Even if you have won major titles if you become used to a 54-hole environment it is very difficult to find that sharpness to go for an extra six hours potentially.
Koepka may have to spend a bit more time in the golfing wilderness for now. He should serve a minimum one-year suspension from the PGA Tour while he missed the deadline to obtain DP World Tour membership although he will earn plenty of invites you would think.
So where next for Koepka in 2026? Relying on invites or the TGL? What next for LIV? Will Koepka’s exit prompt Rahm and DeChambeau to reconsider their options? LIV could hardly have envisioned after $5 billion spent that they would be losing one of the pillars of the sport.
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