LIV and let die: Why it matters if Mickelson chooses Norman’s rebel tour

The Wanamaker Trophy, awarded to the winner of the US PGA Championship, is huge and heavy; just under a metre high and weighing more than a slab of VB. When Phil Mickelson hoisted aloft that piece of silverware in 2021 he achieved a success nobody had ever considered realistic – triumphing in a major after turning 50.

In the process, Mickelson carved an important chapter of his legacy in his sport. What Mickelson achieved 12 months ago at Kiawah Island deserved to be celebrated somehow at Southern Hills; yet it wasn’t. Mickelson’s all but vanished himself, just as he wasn’t at Augusta National six weeks ago notwithstanding that he’s got three green jackets hanging in his locker.

Was Mickelson’s absence from the PGA Championship a necessary by-product of his obvious, tumultuous and rambling espousing of the soon-to-commence Saudi-funded rebel golf league? Or is there some other explanation?

Was his non-appearance instead due to him shuttering away the adverse commentary associated with the publication of a barnacles-and-all unauthorised biography that concentrates more on Mickelson’s apparently rampant gambling (of his own money, that he can clearly afford to lose) and less on his golf?

The only certainty is that Mickelson should’ve been in Tulsa for the PGA. For his own benefit and because in golf that’s the kind of tradition which is dictated and indeed mandated. Golf admirably celebrates its lineage of champions; its history actually means something.

Starkly devoid of any heritage whatsoever is golf’s “elephant in the room”, the new LIV International Series. Golf’s glossy, antagonistic travelling circus now pitches its tent before the next major, the US Open in mid June. And the spotlight will shine harshly.

Phil Mickelson holds the Wanamaker Trophy after winning the 2021 PGA Championship.Credit:AP Photo

This first tournament of the Saudi-backed series is scheduled for a fortnight from now at the Centurion Club just outside of London. Will Mickelson peg it up in St Albans, the week before the US Open? Who could possibly know.

Lists of players, and somewhat oddly the “teams” they’ve been drafted into, were supposed to have been announced before now. Presently at least, LIV’s CEO Greg Norman has spiked the idea of “doing media”, which is odd.

If it’s money for Mickelson, the answer surely is that he’ll be in Blighty the week after next. The more than $35 million in total prizemoney for the event on offer from the Saudis, to be split among 48 players, is over double the total prize purse for the US Open, where even after the half-way cut there’s double the players.

If Mickelson is forced to make a choice – men who are now playing the back nine of their lives can’t easily play consecutive weeks – between the folding stuff and an improbable tilt at winning the only major that’s eluded him, then perhaps he’ll remain the other side of the Atlantic.

Phil Mickelson with LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman.Credit:Getty

And herein lies the problem. If one was ever fortunate enough to be so talented as to have a choice between joining this Saudi-backed “World Series Cricket of golf” or sticking loyal to wherever you’ve thus far plied your trade, is there a choice?

These incessant rumblings about restraints of trade litigation and antitrust suits – and armies of suited lawyers being ready to strike if either the PGA Tour or DP World Tour attempts to sanction, or God forbid issue “lifetime ban” to defectors, for having the temerity to also take part in a LIV event – misses a crucial point.

It’s highly likely that the means of the House of Saud (and its supposedly arm’s-length independent sovereign wealth fund) to invest in this rebel LIV tour, knows precisely no bounds. The Saudi business model definitely isn’t dependent on broadcast revenues, Instagram “likes” and ticketed patrons.

Hypothetically, one expects that if the PGA Tour somehow instantly doubled the $603 million in total prizemoney on offer to players this season, the Saudis could just double-down again.

But the limitlessness of the Saudi money that can be thrown at this new venture isn’t the point. Instead, if you accept the hypothetical proposition that the PGA Tour is a broken, crooked monopoly (which it certainly isn’t), ask yourself this question: leaving aside the money, what exactly can Norman and his LIV conglomerate offer?

Can victory in the inaugural LIV event at Centurion Club, or indeed at the season’s final tournament to be played (entirely appropriately) at Donald Trump’s Doral Blue Monster in Florida, offer anything which is in any way relevant or important to a player’s legacy, history or reputation?

Will anyone care next year, about what happened at the Centurion Club in 2022? I’d venture to say most definitely not.

And if not, then what actually is everyone afraid of here? Is it even worth contemplating the absurdity of trying to lock players into “The Establishment” with injunctions, suspensions or even golden handcuffs?

This Saudi “threat” to the world order, provided by the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, is in fact not much of a threat whatsoever. Where the PGA Tour would likely lose an antitrust case if it sought to forever ban a player who dared play in the Saudi rebel tournaments, the argument to do nothing must instead be considered.

Do precisely nothing. The more you think about it, the less of a “threat” this Saudi league is. What exactly can it offer a player, apart from money? When it’s already the case that there’s so much money in the sport.

Tennis players are rightfully outraged about the All England Club’s absurd decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players from Wimbledon. Some players – Naomi Osaka is but one – are starting to make noises about whether to play at SW17 at all if there are no rankings points on offer.

If the Saudi golf tournaments are equally treated as exhibition events, how long do you seriously think that golf’s top talent would remain interested in just the dollars on offer?

Three weeks ago, during the first round of the Wells Fargo Championship in Maryland, Spaniard Sergio Garcia was grumbling away like a modern-day Billy Bibbit about how he couldn’t wait for the expiry of one more fortnight, so he could permanently leave the PGA Tour, presumably to defect to this new Saudi-funded Disneyland.

Unedifying, however the solution is uncontroversial. Let Garcia defect. Don’t ban him; don’t fine him, instead thank him.

Competition is good; the grass won’t be greener at St Albans. To butcher the philosophising of that wonderful 1980s icon Gordon Gekko: competition, for want of a better word, is good. The arrival of an upstart competitor in the market shouldn’t be seen as a threat, where the competitor has only one weapon in the armoury.

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