Phil Mickelson blocked me on Twitter because I said he was a
selfish, entitled jerk for taking Saudi blood money.
He can block me. But he knows I’m right.
We’ve seen Americans reject sportswashing en masse this year with the Winter Olympics, as the games being played in China has been a huge
reason for the massive decline in ratings. While some have pointed to the time
difference, the Olympic Games had the same TV issues with time zones in 2018,
and those games didn’t suffer.
Somehow, the proposed Saudi golf league is even worse than only
sportswashing because it has the added benefit of really, really, really rich
people trying to make even more money.
We saw this play out in 2021 when the top European soccer
clubs tried to form a Super League that died a miserable, tremendous, hilarious death in about 48 hours as supporters of every club took to the streets, and
even the pitch, to protest. No one wanted it because the sport was built upon
competition and being open to every club. The closed-door league never made
sense in soccer. It makes even less sense in golf.
There has been rumblings from a few high-profile golfers
over the years, starting with Greg Norman, continued by Phil Mickelson, and now
including Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau, that the players weren’t making
enough money. Notably absent from this list is Tiger Woods, who is the reason
why all these guys make so much money anyway. Tiger changed the math for the
entire sport. If anyone should feel slighted that they weren’t making enough,
it would be Tiger.
Instead, some members of this golfing generation feel that
it’s their birthright to make millions upon millions more than the millions upon millions they are already making. This isn’t a situation like in baseball,
where the owners make billions while the players make millions. The PGA Tour is
definitely making money hand over fist, but so are the players. That’s the
whole point. The rising tide lifts all boats. The PGA Tour, listening to some
concerns, has even raised purses this year. Its signature event, the Players
Championship, now carries an insane purse of $20 million.
Rory McIlroy would easily make that much money, if not more,
if he decided to join the Bonesaw Golf Circuit. Instead, he’s been loudly and rightly opposed to it. To turn the game of golf into a money grab from a
country that should be a global pariah for its human rights violations is
disgusting and Rory knows it.
Phil Mickelson doesn’t care if being gay is illegal in Saudi Arabia, just like Vince McMahon doesn’t mind if the Saudi government kills more journalists for speaking out. They are motivated by one thing – the bottom
line.
It really hit me how gross this new Blood Money Tour would
be during the PGA Tour’s annual stop at Pebble Beach. One of the tour’s
signature events, many top stars like Mickelson and Johnson took the money and ran. They played in what was a lucrative tournament that absolutely no one
cared about. Every American golf fan was glued to the television sets on Sunday
afternoon as Jordan Spieth tried to win and was overtaken by an incredible
stretch of birdies on the back nine by Tom Hoge.
Tom Hoge? Who the hell is that?
Exactly. The Saudis wouldn’t pay Tom Hoge $30 million per
year. He’s only a guy who had been on the PGA Tour since 2015 and finally won
his first tournament in 203 starts in the most amazing way possible. It was a
perfect encapsulation of what separates golf from other individual sports like
tennis, and most team sports. Anyone can win anything on any given weekend,
provided they have qualified their way into the competition.
This past weekend, Charley Hoffman made an ass out of himself, when a rules violation led him to complain publicly that the PGA Tour
was a mess and it’s why “guys like him” are thinking about leaving.
As we saw with the Australian Open without Novak Djokovic,
these sports are not as defined by the stars and players as much as the stars
and players think they are. Rafa Nadal won the Australian Open in one of the
most epic finals in Grand Slam history. Ten years from now, no one will care or
remember that Novak was too stupid to get vaccinated and couldn’t play.
So let Mickelson and Johnson and DeChambeau play the Bonesaw
Circuit. They can take Lee Westwood and Charley Hoffman and Ian Poulter with
them. They can count up all their money while their legacies are forever
stained, choosing cold hard cash over the game that made them who they are today.
The PGA Tour will be fine. The PGA Tour may even be better
off without them. The Masters will still be the Masters. The PGA Championship will still be the PGA Championship. Those are the ties that bind the sport to its past,
and keep fans interested in its future.
The Saudi Golf League is a pure, disgusting money grab. It
may get off the ground. It won’t succeed. It’s a failure I can’t wait to revel
in.
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