LIV GOLF
“LIV was a bad idea, hatched by people with too much money and too little judgment.”
they do they should do it fast, heal the breach and move on. Professional golf needs to be healed. Speaking person- ally, though, whoever comes back, if one of them is tied with Rory McIlroy or Justin Rose on Sunday in the US Open, I won’t be rooting for them. Looking back at the last five years, all the turmoil, broken friendships and bad blood in professional golf, what are the lessons we should take away? That true golf fans like me care about traditions, care about the integrity of the sport. And while we understand that it is a business – and certainly believe that professional golfers, like other professional athletes, deserve to be well compensated for their excel- lence – when you cast all the history, charitable values and records of the PGA Tour aside and make it only about money, you lose a lot of us. It is not that I don’t think professional golf should not be about money, it is that its appeal to me all these years was that it was not only about money. I bet a lot of golfers would play in the Masters if all they got was a trophy. There are things that money can’t buy – and when you sacrifice all those things, in whatever endeavour you are engaged in, you are left with something hollow. What does LIV reveal about Ameri- ca's ability to set the rules in global sports? Is it a microcosm of shifting geopolitical power where capital, not morals or traditions, dictate outcomes? I would not read too much into it. It was a solar-lunar eclipse – the wrong peo- ple at the wrong time – with too much money, too few of the right values and too little good judgment. I don’t see it as a trend. May it rest in peace –or at least rest.
What I do know is this: PIF is differ- ent from other major sovereign wealth funds. Most of them invest in liquid cash, stocks, bonds and commodities all over the world. So, in times of eco- nomic slowdown, they have lots of cash available to inject into their economies. PIF was always different. Its mandate was largely, but not exclusively, to in- vest in construction projects building a new Saudi Arabia. It may seem bizarre to many people, but PIF today is short on cash. The Wall Street Journal noted that in 2024, PIF reported a return that was "close to zero.’’ That was in a year that the S&P was up 25 percent. It is rich on paper, but it is not rolling in dough – and then you add the Iran war costs on top of that. Suddenly LIV starts to look like not just a frivolous hobby by a golf-obsessed Saudi running PIF, but another totally unnecessary cash drain. Saudi Arabia is still hosting the 2034 World Cup and is still invested in F1, boxing, Newcastle United, the LIV-adjacent SURJ Sports Invest- ment entity. Why do you think golf got sacrificed? Again, bringing professional sports to
Saudi Arabia, a young country, where both women and men are now partici- pating in professional sports leagues, makes sense to me. Funding Sergio Garcia’s retirement, not so much – especially in the new economic envi- ronment. I can’t imagine any Saudi citizen will miss LIV. You're a golfer who cares deeply about the game and the PGA Tour. Understanding the international implications, if you were new CEO Brian Rolapp, how would you now handle a re-entry of LIV Golf stars like Jon Rahm, Bryson DeCham- beau and Cam Smith? Feel differ- ently about Phil Mickelson? That’s a hard one. I am a golf devotee. I love to see the best play the best. But there are a lot of PGA Tour pros in the top 50 who turned down a lot of money to preserve the integrity and future of the PGA Tour, instead of jumping to LIV for the money. Tough call. Whatever President Donald Trump and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. LIV Golf will return in August to Trump Bedminster in New Jersey.
30 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
MAY 2026
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