As much as I find myself on social media daily, this past Tuesday was different.
Work was incredibly busy. My wife’s former colleague passed away – she was sorrowfully stunned by his sudden passing on. Then her car wouldn’t start when she wanted to leave for the afternoon school run. Situation dictating, I hastily pack up my laptop, grab my untouched lunch bag and dash off from work to pick the kid up from school in time before he thinks we forgot about him.
Because yes, we have forgotten him once before. I mean, are you even a hard-working, committed parent if this didn’t happen to you at least once?
Anyway, point being, I had a lot going on that day.
Then amid the chaos, I saw a blue bird notification on my phone screen that’s some 20-plus minutes old – uncommon for me. I usually check it as it comes in.
Someone tweeted me on Elon’s playground for free speech, “Are you okay?” This someone being Atish Jogi, an ardent golfer and once upon a time GQ Best Dressed Man. He’s also a co-founder of Members Only – a retro-edgy golf apparel brand from South Africa. At first, I was completely confused by his random tweet.
But 15 seconds later I just knew something significant was afoot in the golf world. “It must be Rory opening his big mouth again,” I thought. “Or John Rahm made a surprise move to LIV.”
I hop onto Instagram and boom! My Far From Par DM’s flooded. “PGAT Merges with Saudi Backed LIV Golf League”. WTH?! My initial thought was PGA Tour (PGAT) commissioner Jay Monahan must have resigned. Secondly, this is a massive win for global golf – potentially for South Africa, too. I’ll touch on this later.
Then I read the letter the PGA Tour sent to its members informing them of “… a momentous day for YOUR organisation …”, signed by its infamous commissioner Monahan, only hours before the news broke in the media. The same commissioner who created a theatric impression that the PGAT is an organisation run by its members, for its members. Some (maybe even most) PGAT members or players first heard of the shocking news on Twitter! How’s that for an organisation run by its members, for its members.
It was signed by same commissioner who scurried the length and breadth of the earth to vilify the LIV Golf League and did everything but intimidate and threaten its members with a jail sentence if they “defect” to the rival tour.
The same commissioner who was so desperately clutching at straws to discredit the legitimacy of LIV Golf, he even drew in the victims of 9/11 as an emotive lever to counter any credibility his Arab rival was quickly establishing.
Both the PGAT and the DP World Tour’s key offensive play was a tenuous attempt at taking the moral high ground as foremost proponents of human rights, by systemically attacking the agreeably questionable human rights track record of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the country who’s sovereign wealth, through their Public Investment Fund (PIF), is bankrolling the LIV Golf League with “sportswashing blood money”, as they like to put it.
Even the American and allied golf media almost always (if not always) referred to LIV Golf League as the “Saudi funded, or Saudi-backed golf league”. As if they are funded by some rogue terrorist militia.
“Don’t take blood money”. “Show your loyalty to the tour that made you who you are”. “Think about the Americans who died in 9/11”, is some of the disingenuous rhetoric spewed by the PGAT and their allies.
Nearly a year ago to this day I wrote an article about the hypocrisy woven into the anti-LIV position of the PGAT and its “strategic” bedfellow, the DP World Tour.
In a case of comedic irony, the name sponsor of the DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour), is DP World – a UAE based multinational logistics company. You can’t make this stuff up!
Golf commentators, players, and influencers were seemingly forced (perhaps even paid) to choose sides. And they did. The PGAT v LIV Golf League became a three-year-long war or words, media snubs, severe sanctions or fines for defecting players, and a high-stakes anti-competitive court case.
On the upside, three years is a much shorter period of war than the US is known for. I mean, they only just about withdrew from Iraq after two decades of American-led war claiming millions of lives – many of them innocent.
Despite the short-LIVed golf war, the damage is substantial. Maybe not in lives lost, but in dollars lost. More than $1 billion was reportedly rejected by PGAT players who were strongly encouraged to remain loyal to the tour. And creditability. The PGAT lost heaps of credibility too.
I’m not a stakeholder with a vested interest in the going-ons of the PGAT, so I guess I’m not really disappointed by their hypocritical antics. I am, however, deeply agitated that Jay and co steeped so low by dragging divisive geopolitics into golf, when all it was really about, is money. Or more accurately, how much of it the PGAT stood to lose now that a legitimate competitor with an innovative and viable alternative offering in an industry they dominated for decades, is growing in popularity.
Or, how much they stood to lose if the anti-competitive law suit they were staring head-on, revealed (speculatively speaking) how little of a not-for-profit entity the PGAT actually is.
There are two things that stand out for me in the PGAT’s official letter to its members:
The PIF is now the marquee sponsor of the PGAT.
The PIF is a key financial investor in the new commercial entity to be formed, under which a new wave of golf of varying formats, including the commercial interests of LIV Golf, PGAT, and the DPWT will vest.
I am happy about the merger, though. It is the best outcome for everyone who loves golf – even for the old white men who were barking orders to Rory, Rahm, Morikawa, and others.
Seemingly, the Saudi “blood money” was only bad when it didn’t pass through the coffers of the PGAT. In a flailing effort to create a clean slate from which the PGAT, DPWT, and LIV Golf League will now harmoniously co-exist, I’m speculating that Jay himself cleaned all the terrorist dollars through the Saudi sportswashing machine, while leaving poor Rory out to dry.
Oh yes! In closing, and on a more positive note, I mentioned this merger could be good for golf in South Africa. Why, you might ask? One of LIV’s objectives is to decentralise world golf from the US. To broaden the reach of where the best golfers in the world compete against one another in all their magnificent glory.
LIV has a South African team with many of its players having very close ties to the custodian of South African golf, Johan Rupert. And in the framework of franchise team golf, I won’t be surprised if Rupert, through one of his subsidiaries, buys a stake in the South African team called The Stingers, led by captain Louis Oosthuisen and supported by Branden Grace, Charl Schwartzel, and currently Dean Burmester.
With his wealth, his established clout in and love for golf, and the Sunshine Tour’s partnership with the DPWT, we might just see a LIV event taking place at the famed Leopard Creek, South Africa’s No 1 ranked golf course owned by Rupert himself.
Yes, this is a hopeful grasp, but not entirely an improbable one.
Jehad Kasu is a golf enthusiast and an active advocate for golf transformation and inclusivity.
He serves as co-chairman of Mitchells Plain Golf Club and is an executive board member of the Papwa Foundation.
To find out more about Mitchells Plain Golf Club visit www.mpgc.org.za or @mitchellsplain_golfclub on Instagram, or contact Jehad via [email protected]
IOL