Saudi Arabia should take a mulligan
In 1989, I published a book about the Middle East, “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” and after it came out, my editor, Jonathan Galassi, asked me what my next book would be about. I told him that I wanted to write a book about golf.
He looked at me quizzically and asked, “The Persian Gulf?” “No,” I said. “Golf. Golf.”
I say this to establish the fact that I have two passions in life: the Middle East and golf. I was a member at the Beirut Golf and Country Club in 1982 — the only course where you were happy to be in a bunker. I caddied in the 1970 U.S. Open at Hazeltine for Chi Chi Rodriguez. I once caddied with my pal Neil Oxman for Tom Watson and Andy North in the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf senior tournament, and although I drove over Andy’s ball in a practice round with our cart, we’re still friends.
I know golf, and I know the Gulf. I know the PGA, and I know MBS, which is why I am writing today about the controversy enveloping professional golf: the creation of a breakaway tour fronted by Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson and funded by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS.
The new tour is called the LIV Golf International Series. It’s a classic case of idiotic “sportswashing” by the Saudis, with help from some soulless professional golfers. In my view, it is terrible for golf and even worse for the Saudis. It is only drawing attention to what the Saudis are trying to get people to forget — the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi — rather than what they want people to embrace — Saudi Arabia as a future sports and entertainment mecca.
If I had a chance to speak directly to MBS, here is what I would tell him:
Mohammed, you get only one chance to make a second impression, and you’re squandering it by getting into bed with these rebels, some of them among the least likable members of the PGA Tour. But I’m not going to focus on those golfers today. I want to focus on Saudi Arabia.
Your government’s responsibility for the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia and wrote for The Washington Post, is a permanent stain that will never go away. It was an unspeakable act of cruelty for a moderate regime critic.
But that doesn’t mean there is noth
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