FORT WORTH, Texas — When Phil took out his driver and aimed it at the PGA Tour, we all winced.
No reputation in golf was as pretty as Phil Mickelson’s, and now he’s exiled because he hates the PGA Tour’s rules.
As globally popular as Tiger Woods was, and still is, even he recognized he cannot beat the PGA Tour.
The PGA Tour made Tiger.
Tiger always needed the PGA Tour more than the PGA Tour ever needed Tiger Woods.
Phil’s ego grew so big that he failed to see the player needs the event more than the event needs the player.
Golf remains aflutter at the “threat” of the Saudi Arabian start up LIV Golf Invitational Series, which is expected to begin in June. It promises to throw money at golfers the way you’d expect an oil sheikh to spend cash.
There is so much money involved that it could potentially pose as a threat to the PGA Tour, but this is not about golf. This is another attempt by a dirty government to “sports wash” both their money, and their globally sullied reputation.
The Nazis tried this with the Olympics in the 1930s.
China has tried it twice this century by hosting both a Summer and Winter Olympics.
Russia tried this with the 2014 Winter Olympics. Then the 2018 World Cup.
Qatar is trying it out with the 2022 World Cup.
Hosting a few big-name golf tournaments cannot erase host country’s human rights records, and according to Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia’s human rights record is slightly terrible.
If this startup golf series was affiliated with a different country, the PGA Tour could afford to be a little less strident, but not for this one. There is no incentive for the PGA Tour to let the LIV Golf Invitational Series play through.
Golf legend Greg Norman is attached to a series that currently has eight announced sites this year, including four in the United States, with one of those locations being at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.
