Ryder Cup comes distant second for some when dollar bills beckon
RORY MCILROY once, with the naivety of youth, described the Ryder Cup as an exhibition. After he had experienced its crushing intensity, phenomenal atmosphere and band-of-brothers camaraderie, he soon changed his tune.
Last time around, he was in floods of tears on the final day atwhistling Straits as Europe crashed and burned, emotionally opining that nothing in individual golf mattered in anything like the same way.
Watching the inaugural event in the LIV Golf Invitational Series over the last few days, you could only conclude he was right the first time.all that stuff about it being the greatest golf show on Earth? Hogwash, evidently.
If they really cared that deeply about the Ryder Cup, if it was really that important, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Graeme
Mcdowell and Martin Kaymer would not have been seen anywhere near the Centurion Club.
The sanctions have yet to be announced but given their strategic alliance with the PGA Tour, who banned them within half an hour of the first ball in the rebel league being struck on Thursday, it would be a surprise if the European Tour do not act in parallel and in the process render them ineligible for the Ryder Cup.
The rebels knew full well the likely consequences of their involvement but, seduced by the dollar signs, they did it anyway.
One of the innocent joys of the Ryder Cup is that it is not driven by financial gain. Europe’s players are unpaid and those of the United States give their fee to charity. It revolves around higher ideals than a pay cheque.
Europe’s famous five have demonstrated with their actions where those ideals rank in their minds.
These are not journeyman Tour pros, this is European Ryder Cup royalty we are talking about here.
Respectively, the record appearance holder, the leading all-time points scorer, the match-winner from Celtic Manor and Mr Bulging Eyes Ryder Cup himself and the match-winners from Celtic Manor and Medinah.
Yet they have wantonly risked throwing away any future involvement in defying the European Tour to sign up with the Saudis.
There was a very real chance that Poulter, Mcdowell,westwood and Garcia could well have been Europe’s next four captains. Not now. The message they have sent out, not just to the paying
public, but to the next generation of European players, is that the Ryder Cup is not so important after all. Not when there are millions to be earned, anyway.
WESTWOOD made the point that if another employer was offering a pay rise, most people would be interested. In that respect he is right. But a successful professional golfer in his 40s is unlike most people. The Euro rebels’ combined career earnings top $150million. They are not struggling to pay the gas bill.
The question of how much is enough has always been a difficult one for professional golfers to answer. As individual sportsmen, they tend to follow their noses all the way to the money trough and then bury their heads as deeply as they can.
It was amusing to hear Tiger Woods sanctimoniously calling out Phil Mickelson for pocketing a massive signing-on fee rather than earning his winnings on the Pgatour.this is the same Tiger Woods whose appearance fee to play in tournaments around the globe in his pomp reportedly ran at a cool $4m. Loyalty
can be bought in golf so what have the Saudis got for their contentious investment? So far, a launch event which, if it was a fairground game of High Striker, did not get close to ringing the bell.
The field was uneven with too many Scottvincents to Dustin Johnsons and while the three-round concept was good, without a cut it lacked jeopardy.
The shotgun start had merit but the team element and the names which accompanied it appeared to have been drawn up on a pub beer mat.
The scoreboard on the Youtube coverage – or pylon as the commentators called it – needs a tweak, too, with its abbreviations of player names.the unfortunatewade Ormsby became WORM.
LIV Golf needs a proper broadcast partner for the other seven events in the series if it is to catch on.
Last week, with no Major ban in place, some of the rebels will now rejoin the mainstream to compete at the US Open.
On the surface, it will be as if nothing has ever happened.a super-talented American clone will win; Mcilroy will flatter to deceive. But the reality is golf is a sport at war and the Ryder Cup is the
collateral damage.