LIV GOLF
The LIV Golf Crisis explained
Assuming LIV Golf shuts down, what does that signal about Saudi Arabia's broader strategy of using sport for global influence? In other words, what's the future of “sportswashing”? There is an old saying that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. I will just say that LIV was a bad idea from the start, hatched by some people with too much money and too little judg- ment, seeking influence in and over the game of professional golf for many different motives – none of them good. They were obsessed with golf. I never thought this was about some strategic decision by the ruling family to clean up the Khashoggi tragedy, by start- ing a golf tour with Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson. It only made it worse, bringing it from the news pages to the sports pages and back. To what extent has the Iran war and the current Middle East climate played a role in the Saudis’ poten- tially pulling back on LIV? It exacerbated a problem that was already there. Even before the war, the Saudis were cancelling or slow- ing down a lot of domestic building projects. They were trying to do too much at once, recognised that, and so they began cutting back buildings and projects that were seen as too ex- pensive or too unnecessary. LIV fell into that bucket, and the Iran war just exacerbated that trend. While the price of oil per barrel has gone up, and that is good for an oil-producing state, the Saudi oil industry suffered some real, costly damage from Iranian attacks and, in the future, they are going to have to spend billions more on their defence. I think this is when MBS realised that this golf tour was not bringing a single new tourist to Saudi Arabia – it was only a money drain – and an easy one to sunset. Yasir Al-Rumayyan is both PIF governor and LIV Golf chairman. He was out in front with golf, known as an avid golfer and defender of LIV. Is this just one investment that didn't pay off or will there be bigger implications for him?
For the last five years, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has spent $5 billion disrupting professional golf by investing in the upstart LIV Golf Tour. However, multiple outlets are reporting it will discontinue funding the golf league after this year. To understand why, we asked Thomas Friedman, a contributing editor for Golf Digest and one of the world’s authorities on the Middle East, to explain LIV. Golf Digest: How would you charac- terise the Saudis' original goal for LIV Golf and how it fit into the larger PIF strategy? Friedman: I had a conversation with a senior Saudi leader at the time. He was under the impression it would increase the play of golf in Saudi Arabia, which was part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s larger strategy of attract- ing tourists, particularly sports tourism, to Saudi Arabia. I explained to them that the way to attract golf to Saudi Arabia was not by funding a rival tour to the PGA Tour, made up largely by professional golfers on the back nine of their careers, but instead by dedicating 30 kilometres of Saudi Arabia’s mas- sive coastline and inviting the world’s top five golf architects to build five links courses there. That is what would bring golf tourists – not this LIV tour. Was it at all successful? I can only speak for myself. I am a golf enthusiast. I love watching women’s golf on the Golf Channel because their game is slightly closer to mine! I never once watched a LIV event on TV or in person, and I never once looked up who won a tournament, let alone which team won. It struck me as a cross be- tween an exhibition event and a weekly giant corporate outing. I would pay to see Chi-Chi Rodriquez do an exhibition
and spin golf balls on his wedge or hit a 250-yard drive from his knees before I would pay for LIV. One of the consistent objections to LIV Golf was the Saudi regime’s hu- man rights record, and its potential role in anti-American attacks. Yet it’s also true many American corpo- rations benefit from Saudi business and funding. What is the truth? I have complicated views on this sub- ject that you don’t have space for. Saudi Arabia lost its way after the takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979. It made a giant, puritanical right turn that was terrible for Saudi Arabia and for the whole Arab-Muslim world, of which it is the titular leader. That right turn contributed to 9/11. MBS’s whole agenda was to reverse 1979 – let women drive, open up Saudi Arabia to tourism, take the religious police off the streets, soften Saudi Islam, bring in a film festi- val and comedy festival. It is one of the biggest, fastest social transformations in the world – and it has had a huge effect inside. They now have a profes- sional women’s basketball league! At the same time, it is still an abso- lute monarchy and that absolute mon- arch was complicit in the murder of Saudi journalist and reformer Jamal Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia, the region and the whole Muslim world is vastly better off for MBS’s reforms and he never will or should escape responsibility for the Khashoggi murder. If you can’t hold two contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time, don’t come to the Middle East for either golf or a war in the Gulf.
“LIV is starting to look like a totally unnecessary cash drain for Saudi Arabia.”
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 29
MAY 2026
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator