LOS ANGELES — This was supposed to be a celebration of golf, this return of the U.S. Open to Los Angeles after 75 years.
It still probably will be, once the first groups tee off Thursday morning to send the 156-man field off and running. But in the days leading up to the 123rd edition of this country’s national golf championship, the sudden and surprising alliance between the PGA Tour and its former LIV adversaries (and particularly Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund) has hovered over the discussion of more mundane golf matters, kind of like a noxious cloud.
The questions have to be asked. That’s our job. And players who have made themselves available in the days leading up to the tournament have answered them as best they could, without a lot of concrete information to go on.
It probably wasn’t coincidence that Rory McIlroy, scheduled for the first press conference spot Tuesday at Los Angeles Country Club, bowed out and was replaced by Collin Morikawa. Rory, the main defender of the PGA Tour over the past year, had essentially spoken his piece last week at the Canadian Open, after the agreement was first announced.
The overriding sentiment is uncertainty, along with some dismay among PGA Tour players that (a) things were done so stealthily and without giving the players so much as a heads-up, and (b) the loyalty those players had originally showed to their tour turned out to be no more than a bargaining chip.
“I think the general feeling is that a lot of people feel a bit of betrayal from management,” Jon Rahm said. “I understand why they had to keep it so secret. I understand we couldn’t make it through a (Players Advisory Council) meeting more than 10 minutes (without) people spilling the beans right away in some article by you guys already being out there. So I get it. I get the secrecy.
“It’s just not easy as a player that’s been involved, like many others, to wake up one day and see this bombshell. That’s why we’re all in a bit of a state of limbo because we don’t know what’s going on and how much is finalized and how much they can talk about, either.”
The bombshells keep on coming, to be sure. The Times of London reported Wednesday that the Public Investment Fund would establish a pool to compensate players, like McIlroy, Rahm and Tiger Woods, who stayed true to the PGA Tour, creating some equity with the players who accepted huge contracts to jump to LIV.
Many of the players asked the last couple of days gave various versions of the same answer: “I know as much as you do.” Interestingly, LIV player Cam Smith said he had been given a heads-up 10 minutes before last week’s announcement on CNBC from Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the PIF and now chairman of the combined entity. The PGA Tour pros were blindsided.
USGA CEO Mike Whan noted that LIV’s first event a year ago came the week before the 2022 U.S. Open in Brookline, Mass., so this would be two years in a row that this major has had to compete for attention with the business of professional golf. On that occasion, the debate was whether the majors would, or should, allow players from the renegade tour to play.
“Everybody turned to us and said, are they going to play?” Whan recalled. ” Are they not going to play? Are you going to let them in? John (Bodenhamer, the chief championships officer) was the first in the meeting to say it’s called the U.S. Open, and if somebody qualifies for the U.S. Open, they play in the U.S. Open. I think we sent a message a year ago about the openness of the championship, and nothing has changed in the last year.”
This time, Whan noted that the announcement, the day after the last U.S. Open qualifying rounds had begun, turned out to be the real Longest Day in Golf.
“All of us got together on Wednesday and said, ‘Gosh, all these stories we wanted to tell, maybe it’s going to be harder to tell because media will be focused elsewhere,” he said. “I’m fairly certain now, having lived through this déjà-vu, that the same thing will happen this week that happened last (year), which is once the balls go in the air the athletes take the narrative back.”
But the true fallout is yet to be determined. For example, how many fans who swore last week they were through with professional golf will begin that boycott by ignoring this week’s tournament telecasts, even though the USGA is just a bystander?
The animus toward the Saudis is strong, as it should be, because of the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi citizens’ involvement (and alleged government complicity) in 9-11, and the country’s human rights issues involving women, gays and dissidents. PGA Tour boss Jay Monahan has gone from the moral high ground to going into business with the sportswashing crowd, with the rationale that it wasn’t hypocrisy so much as dealing with the information he had at the time.
That sounds suspiciously like the old line from boxing promoter Bob Arum: “Yesterday I was lying, but today I’m telling the truth.”
But if fans do walk away, how long will they stay away?
Footnote: Monahan is taking a leave from day-to-day administration of the Tour because of a “medical situation,” understandable given the tumult of the last week that included calls for his resignation.
Compounding the confusion and uncertainty, there’s no sense at all of what men’s professional golf will really look like in 2024 and beyond. Some of that is because of the vagueness of the agreement, with lots of colors still to be filled in. Another reason for uncertainty: Government authorities, including the Department of Justice, will be weighing in on whether the new structure will be an anti-competitive venture.
The initial allure of the Saudi-backed circuit was as an alternative to the way the PGA Tour does business, and as Phil Mickelson put it all those months ago, it was an opportunity to force changes to the Tour structure.
Now, if this merger goes through? The chances are good that the Tour, and the Saudis, will make the rules and players who don’t like it will have no recourse. Is that really what Lefty had in mind?
Or does it even matter if the direct deposits have enough zeroes in them?
