One of the immediate reactions to the big golf news earlier this week was to announce Rory McIlroy had been betrayed.
Poor Rory. How must have he felt?
He could have taken a gargantuan fortune from one organisation but had instead stayed loyal and taken a less gargantuan fortune from another organisation.
And then, it turns out, he could have taken both.
Seriously, his hundreds of millions could have been more hundreds of millions, how could we not feel sorry for him?
The injustices of this world cut deep. Who didn’t have a sleepless night when it emerged Rory had taken the extra money from the PGA Tour - oops, sorry, defended the PGA Tour - instead of defecting to LIV Golf?
If there is one thing that characterises the whole LIV/PGA Tour/DP World Tour saga, it is that there is only ONE salient question.
How can obscenely rich men get obscenely richer?
What a faintly depressing, faintly soulless, moral-free, avaricious entity, modern professional golf - perhaps, sport - has become.
Forget all the spurious ramifications of this week’s golfing takeover, it is hard not to wonder if there is any high-profile sportsman or woman out there who, when it comes to the source of their income, has any thoughts about integrity?
In elite professional men’s golf, now, that is going to be pretty much impossible, unless you want to jack it all in.
In all seriousness, McIlroy has, indeed, been shafted by the PGA Tour, even if it is hard to see him as the “sacrificial lamb” he claimed he is.
He HAS been betrayed by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan.
And, sadly - for him and for golf and sport in general - if part of the reason he decided not to join LIV in the first place was based on principles and morals, he now has no other choice but to shelve them.
If part of the reason he decided not to join LIV in the first place was that he did not want to take money from a state that executes people, has a widely-criticised human rights record and criminalises same sex relationships, he now has no choice.
As the man himself said, referring to the Public Investment Fund buying up all sorts of sporting entities: “I’ve just resigned myself to it.”
He is resigned to the fact that the Saudis have just bought golf. And if you are a professional golfer with a deeply held objection to the Saudi regime, then tough.
You either swallow it or walk away from your job.
And that is why the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour have betrayed not just McIlroy but so many more players of the sport, who are now as good as compelled to take the Saudi dollar.
Of course, the upside for McIlroy is the same as it is for Eddie Howe, the Newcastle United players, Karim Benzema, Cristiano Ronaldo and many, many more.
The Saudis will make him even richer than he already is but it still leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.
By accepting their money, golf has just given its unconditional approval to the regime in Saudi Arabia.
And that is sad. That is grim.
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The seismic developments in golf on Tuesday distracted serious attention from one of the biggest corruption scandals in modern sport.
Two snooker players, Liang Wenbo and Li Hang, have been banned from the game for LIFE after being found guilty of serial match-fixing while eight other Chinese players - including the 2021 Master champion Yan Bingtao and 2021 UK Championship winner Zhao Xintong - have been punished with lengthy suspensions.
Amongst the offences committed by the ten snooker players was betting on matches.
Clearly, these ‘crimes’ were of an ultra-serious nature but they also show how matters can escalate.
And that should go a long way to explaining why ALL contraventions of regulations that forbid sportsmen or women gambling on their own sport simply have to be met with serious punishments.
As Ivan Toney can vouch for, those punishments can seem harsh but they are necessary.
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If you wanted a gauge of just how successful and entertaining the coach/captain partnership of Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes has been, then it arrived with the lack of dissent over the call to Moeen Ali.
A class white-ball act, Moeen has not touched a red ball for two years and to say the Australians had the measure of him when he did play Test cricket is an understatement.
On the third day of the first Test at Edgbaston, Moeen will turn 36.
Having watched the Aussies put India to the sword in the World Test Championship final at the Oval, Moeen - whose twenty Australian wickets have come at a cost of almost 65 runs apiece - must be relishing the prospect of bowling in the Ashes. Not.
Of course, the lack of alternative options to replace the injured Jack Leach is a damning indictment of how the county system is failing to produce quality spin bowlers.
But for a regime that, from day one, has prided itself on only taking forward steps, this feels like a backward one.
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Great city, Miami, and who can blame Lionel Messi for relocating his family there?
But it is hard not to think the GOAT had another couple of years of elite European football left in him and hard not to wonder how he would have lit up the Premier League.
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For the way he has conducted himself during his lifetime in football, David Moyes deserved his dancing moments in Prague.
And when you look back at the ten years that have followed Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, if you suggest Moyes should have been given more time at Old Trafford, you would have a case.
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Is anyone else fed up with being taken inside dressing-room celebrations or am I just being a complete misery?
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On Wednesday, a radio station suggested Harry Kane promoting Spurs’ new kit was of serious significance.
Maybe. But Harry Kane NOT promoting Spurs’ new kit would have been of far greater significance.
