Saudi golf coup
Over the past three decades, the oscillating spheres of professional sport and entertainment were being spun in a continuously accelerating centrifuge to mesmerise fans and viewers for the promotion and selling of a vast array of commercial products. Another element has now been added – political public image.
Last Thursday, the LIV Golf Tour, (LIV being a reference to the Roman numerals for 54, the score if every hole of a 72-par golf course was birdied and the number of holes to be played at LIV events), sponsored by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the sovereign wealth fund of the Saudi Arabia Government, teed off at the Centurion Club Golf Course, in Hertfordshire, England. With players competing for the largest ever tournament purse, US$25 million, the landscape of professional golf has changed forever. There is now an intense power struggle for control of the game with the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) doing its utmost to stymie the fast-rising tide of change.
The PGA, which enjoys a membership of over 25,000 professional teachers and players, has effectively been running the professional game for as long as anyone can remember. Formed in 1916, it co-sponsors the annual year-long PGA Tour, which is mostly played in the USA. In addition, it hosts the PGA Championship, one of the four annual major golf tournaments, and shares responsibility with Great Britain for the Ryder Cup. To the casual follower of the game, the PGA is the face of golf.
The LIV Tour was announced last October and its initial declared aims were a prominent worldwide presence and to host an additional ten events on the Asian Tour (which like the DP [European] Tour is not under the auspices of the PGA). “The Asian Tour is a sleeping giant and we share ambition to grow the series and unlock what we believe is significant untapped potential,” declared Australian Greg Norman, a businessman and former number one ranked golfer for almost five years in the 1980s, who serves as the commissioner of the LIV Golf Series and CEO of LIV Golf Investments.
The lure of the LIV Tour is money, pure and simple. Mountains of it. The PIF has promised US$400 million for this season, with US$255 million of it destined for the prize pool. Every LIV event has a prize purse of US$25 million, with US$4 million for the winner. There are no cuts and even the last place participant walks away with a cheque for US$120,000. The purse for the season finale is US$50 million.
Norman, nicknamed ‘the Shark,’ for his fearless and aggressive approach on the golf course, brings the same hard-nosed mentality to the world of business. In November, 1994, having grasped the understanding that the game was
spreading quickly, Norman started laying the groundwork for a world golf tour. His initial proposal was for eight events, four in the USA and four at other locations around the globe, to be contested by a small field of the top ranked players competing for larger purses. The concept was immediately shot down by the PGA Tour’s media apparatus which painted Norman as greedy, versus their orderly and charity oriented organisation. Golfing legend Arnold Palmer then delivered the knockout punch at a players’ evening meeting by denouncing the idea. Two years later, the Shark was infuriated to discover that the PGA had modified his proposal and had kept him out of the loop.
The Shark appears to have adopted the blueprint used by his fellow Australian, media tycoon Kerry Packer when he was denied the exclusive television rights to Australian cricket in 1977, and engaged in a battle with the then Australian Cricket Board of Control. With oodles of cash at his disposal, Norman, who, based on a Sports Illustrated interview 25 years later, was still bitter with the PGA, has sought and secured the signatures of some of the biggest names in golf, albeit at reportedly exorbitant sums. Phil Mickelson committed for the alleged sum of US$200 million, and Dustin Johnson walked away from the PGA reportedly for US$150 million. On Friday, the biggest hitter in the game, Bryson DeChambeau confirmed that he was joining the tour at the second of the eight scheduled events at month end. The names of other leading golfers are spinning in the rumour mill.
Saudi money has been slowly and discreetly winding its way into the professional sports world since the late 1970s. The initial idea was floated by Prince Mohammed Bin-Fahd, the second son of Crown Prince Fahd, who sought to let the world know of Saudi Arabia through the spectacle of Formula One racing. Frank Williams, the Principal of Williams Grand Prix Engineering, a then struggling outfit, got wind of the offer and wasted no time in securing a partnership. In 1978, the Saudia-Williams Racing Team debuted, with Fly Saudia, the national airline, emblazoned on the car’s rear. As the season progressed other Saudi business names appeared on the car, including Albilad, the title of the Royal Trading Company through which Prince Mohammed and the royal family carry out all their business transactions. By 1979, several other Saudi companies had joined the sponsors’ names splashed on the Formula One car. The Williams’ cars would go on to dominate the Grand Prix circuit over the next decade.
Today, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is rather anxious to improve the ultra conservative undemocratic kingdom’s battered global image. Salman has invested very heavily in sporting events as he desperately tries a soft power push designed to project a more moderate image and jettison the shackles of human rights abuses, intolerance of political dissent and the export of hard line ideology (re: Yemen).
Over the last few years, Saudi Arabia has sponsored the Saudi Cup (the world’s richest horse race), held its first Formula One Grand Prix (2021), hosted the Dakar Rally every year since 2020, and staged both the Italian and Spanish Super Cup Finals in 2019, where soccer superstars, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo appeared, respectively. The Saudi bonanza is seeping into every nook and cranny in the sporting world: boxing, wrestling, gaming and eSports. Last year, Saudi dollars acquired control of the English Premier Football League Club, Newcastle United.
Salman’s “Vision 2030” modernisation plan aims for enhanced international status and influence and investment. However, this desperate magician’s diversion trick has not brought the results Salman has been striving for. In fact, the only feedback being tossed in his direction is the term “sportswashing.” Sportswashing has been around for a very long time – Hitler applied it at the 1936 Olympics – but the word has only gained popularity in the last five years, and it is attributed in some quarters to Amnesty International. It can be loosely defined as the facilitating of sporting events by corrupt and tyrannical regimes to deflect from their miserable human rights’ records and/or gloss over their poor international reputations.
When Saudi Arabian dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared in his country’s consulate in Turkey, in 2018, and was subsequently confirmed dead by the Saudi authorities, fingers pointed to Salman as having issued the order to get rid of him. It’s an accusation that lingers, and the PGA is the latest organisation to cling to it in a desperate attempt to stay relevant.
The PGA responded on Thursday by announcing a ban on all players – 17, so far – who participated in the LIV Golf Series kick-off tournament. It’s a hopeless battle, trying to compete against the Saudi petrol dollars, which as of March, were accumulating at the rate of US$1 billion per day. The Kerry Packer history lesson proves the super rich will eventually get what they desire.
The Saudis have targeted the last remaining sporting bastion in the control of the conservative elite. This plan was not hatched in a Bedouin tent, but by highly compensated consultants. Old school exclusion rules no longer apply here; the moral compass has been tossed out the window. Cold hard cash is being waved in the faces of the players. The PGA needs to try a different tack, this sportswashing machine can spin for another century.