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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Andy Nesbitt

The LIV Golf Tour is so damn gross

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For months we had heard about the LIV Golf Tour and wondered if it would ever really come together and be real thing. Could this league powered by incredibly dirty money really get some players to ditch their reputations as human beings and legacies in the game of golf and play in the Saudi-funded league?

Well, now it is a real thing and it’s actually as gross as we thought it would be because none of the players who have sold their souls to these ghouls care one bit about anything but their bank accounts, which is equal parts sad and disgusting.

In case you missed it, Phil Mickelson on Monday became the latest big name to take a boatload of money from a league that’s funded by a Saudi government that executed 81 people on March 12, 2022. You read that right – March 12, 2022. Just a few months ago.

He joins Dustin Johnson and some other players who won’t be missed by golf fans who enjoy the PGA Tour.

It’s basically just a bunch of old dudes who don’t contend anymore on the real Tour (besides DJ) looking to make a huge sum of money while not caring about how incredibly dirty that money is. There are also a bunch of young guys taking the dirty money but you haven’t heard of most of them because they are not even near the top of the world golf rankings.

On Tuesday things got even more gross when a few of the big-name players had their first LIV press conferences before this week’s debut event in London.

It started with Ari Fleischer MC’ing the event. You know, the former White House Press Secretary who in the past has condemned Saudi Arabia over very serious issues. Well he said that his tweet about that stuff “was a long time ago” and things (his Saudi-funded bank account) are all good now!

Dustin Johnson announced that he resigned his PGA Tour membership, meaning he’s now ineligible to play in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup – this just less than a year after he went 5-0 at Whistling Straits to lead his country to a win over Europe in the Ryder Cup. DJ added yet again that he opted to do what was best for his family, because who knows how they could have survived on the $74 million he’s made just on the course in his PGA Tour career. I have to think he made some good money for all those ads he did for a private jet company, as well as the bank he represented for years. But now his family should be OK financially. Thank goodness.

None of the players seem to care about any of the awful human rights violations that have been committed by the Saudi government. They made that clear Tuesday with empty words and insulting head nods.

We also got to find out the team names for the this Tour, as there will be team formats in the events. Sergio Garcia, for instance, will be the captain of team “Fire Balls.” For real. Team Fire Balls. Former Masters champ taking that dirty money to lead… team Fire Balls.

This week’s first event is so huge it will be aired live on… Facebook, YouTube, and the league’s website. Doesn’t get much bigger than that!

This is all the worst and as a golf fan I look forward to not watching any of it.

Boo all of these clowns. For the rest of time.

Quick hits: The nastiest pitch of the MLB season… TNT NHL announcer swears by accident… Fun Gary Payton interview… And more. 

– Detroit’s Alex Lange threw a ridiculously unhittable pitch for a called strike that had fans in awe.

– TNT’s Don Koharski had a hilarious NSFW reaction to a goal in last night’s Oilers-Avalanche game.

– My pal Prince Grimes had a good talk with Gary Payton about his son, Gary Payton II, who is back and playing in the NBA Finals.

– What in the world was this college ump doing after a hitter blasted a home run?

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