Editor’s Letter

Circuit breaker?

Phil Mickelson tried to walk back his “reckless” comments but has irreversible damage been done to Saudi ambitions?

By Kent Gray

THEY SAY A WEEK IS A LONG time in politics. They obviously haven’t played golf. When the game truly turns against you, even a single hole can test ones willingness to keep calm and carry on as your next shot outdoes the last one on a sliding scale of pure and unadulterated misery.

Imagine, then, how awful Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman must have felt as February lurched to a painful close for the rumoured Saudi golf league. We’re not prepared to write an obituary just yet but it did feel like death by a thousand cuts, the deepest of them self-infl icted.

During the week of the PGA Tour’s Genesis Invitational at Riviera, the PGA Tour launched a carefully-choreographed PR counterattack against the breakaway league Norman was seemingly set to front in his role as CEO of LIV Golf Investments. The U.S. tour needn’t have bothered. Thanks to Phil, who was set to be a trusty playing sidekick to Norman and a series stakeholder, the concept went from probable to increasingly toxic in a series of astonishing PR gaff es.

It was an extraordinary week as headliner after headliner came out in support of the status quo just when it seemed LIV Golf were gaining big-name traction. At the Saudi International, Dustin Johnson said he “liked the concept” and off ered “let’s see” to questions about his future. Lee

“I don’t want to kick someone while he’s down obviously but…”

Westwood admitted to having signed an DNA while Henrik Stenson’s silence seemed equally telling. Ian Poulter and Bryson DeChambeau were linked to huge sign-on deals, the latter an eye-popping $135 million which the American quickly refuted on social media. Norman even told CNN Living Golf that LIV Golf had signed more than 17 players, roughly at the same time Adam Scott was joking that he’d been “sworn to secrecy” even if he did fi nd the league’s schedule “appealing”.

When the PGA Tour’s overdue counter-narrative came it was decisive, high profile human dominos falling towards the U.S. circuit one after another, day after day at Riviera.

shark bites (back)

LIV Golf Investments CEO Greg Norman insists the Saudi concept isn’t sunk yet

Mickelson hadn’t helped the LIV Golf cause when he spoke of the PGA Tour’s “obnoxious greed” during the Saudi International but the likely circuit breaker came with the release of snippets from an interview he gave back in November for an upcoming biography. Quite how the reigning U.S. PGA champion thought that accusing the Kingdom of being “scary… to deal with” would not return to haunt him beggars belief. The bit where he openly admitted to using the Saudi initiative as leverage, a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates”, spoke to an equally staggering sense of entitlement.

Lefty’s repeated foot-in-mouth moments, which may or may not have prompted Johnson and DeChambeau to do swift 180-degree turns back towards the PGA Tour, looked to have stymied LIV Golf’s long-term plans at the time of print.

“It’s dead in the water,” Rory McIlroy said on Sunday at the Genesis before turning his crosshairs on Mickelson’s reported comments. “I don’t want to kick someone while he’s down obviously but I thought they were naive, selfi sh, egotistical, ignorant. A lot of words to describe that interaction he had with [journalist Alan] Shipnuck. It was just very surprising and disappointing, sad. I’m sure he’s sitting at home sort of rethinking his position and where he goes from here.”

It also begged the question as to where LIV Golf turned next. True to form, Norman left no-one in any doubt a few days later when he wrote an open letter to Jay Monahan, insisting “Surely you jest” in response to reports that the PGA Tour commissioner had floated lifetime bans to anyone aligning with LIV Golf.

“Commissioner,” Norman concluded, “This is just the beginning. It is certainly not the end.”

Whatever happens, Mickelson’s position is seemingly untenable, especially after a written apology for his “reckless” comments was roundly criticised as conceited.

If the Saudi league is to rise off the canvas, it’s going to take more than announcements of front offi ce executives, as impressive as LIV Golf’s line-up appears. It won’t come out swinging if the player announcements are ageing stars either. But as McIlroy said, it is hard to see where exactly any names, much less narrative shifting young guns, are coming from.

“Who’s left? Who’s left to go? I mean, there’s no one. It’s dead in the water in my opinion,” the Northern Irishman said. “I just can’t see any reason why anyone would go … I mean, Greg Norman would have to tee it up to fi ll the fi eld. Like, I mean seriously? I mean, who else is going to do it? I don’t think who else is going to do it? I don’t think they could get 48 guys.”

lefty’s lament

In his apology, Mickelson said: “I desperately need some time away...”

editor-in-chief Obaid Humaid Al Tayer managing partner & group editor Ian Fairservice

editor Kent Gray art director Clarkwin Cruz editorial assistant Londresa Flores instruction editors Luke Tidmarsh, Euan Bowden, Tom Ogilvie, Matthew Brookes, Lea Pouillard, Alex Riggs chief commercial officer Anthony Milne publisher David Burke general manager - production S. Sunil Kumar assistant production manager Binu Purandaran

the golf digest publications editor-in-chief Jerry Tarde

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