How will controversial Saudi-financed golf series affect Presidents Cup in Charlotte?
Professional golf was shaken to its core this week when a major fight erupted between the PGA Tour and some of its stars who have followed the money to a competing, Saudi-backed series of tournaments.
Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia were among the 17 golfers the PGA Tour suspended Thursday from its events, less than an hour after all of those golfers teed off at the first LIV Golf event just outside London.
How will all that affect the Presidents Cup, one of the PGA’s biggest events coming up Sept. 22-25 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte?
Not as much as you might expect for a crisis that has roiled an entire sport.
The Presidents Cup will still take place. And my guess is that at least 21 of the 24 golfers participating in the four-day, match play tournament would be the same ones who would have been chosen for their respective teams if LIV Golf had never existed.
If you need a refresher, the Presidents Cup is a global competition held every two years between the U.S. and an international team — but the international team does not include players from Europe. Spaniard Garcia, for instance, is part of the LIV Golf universe now but wouldn’t have been eligible to play in the Presidents Cup regardless.
The Presidents Cup rosters will be affected to some degree. None of those 17 golfers the PGA suspended from its events will be eligible to play. And while most wouldn’t have made the field, several would have. If you were buying tickets with the idea of seeing Johnson play for the U.S. team or Louis Oosthuizen play for the international team, you’re out of luck.
Mickelson — despite being the second-biggest name in American golf behind Tiger Woods and the all-time leader for most points tallied in the Presidents Cup — likely wasn’t going to make the U.S.’s 12-man team anyway (likely Bryson DeChambeau wouldn’t have made it either; he joined LIV Golf Friday). Notwithstanding his enormous upset victory in the 2021 PGA Championship, Mickelson’s play has drifted in recent years. He’s ranked No. 72 in the world.
The top six American players in the Presidents Cup standings make the team automatically, with captain Davis Love III then choosing the other six players Aug. 29.
If none of this had happened, Mickelson, 51, would have perhaps been an ambassador or co-captain of some sort. So he could have been in Charlotte for public-relations purposes — and he’s long been one of the most popular players whenever he shows up at Quail Hollow — but in a non-playing role.
The international team has a slightly different selection system, but it will also be chosen Aug. 29. It if were selected today, likely only Oosthuizen would be missing from the team due to his participation in LIV Golf.
All that means is that the Presidents Cup experience in Charlotte will largely feel the same — a pro-American, rowdier-than-usual crowd cheering on the red, white and blue in a match-play tournament that the United States almost always wins (career U.S. record in Presidents Cup: 11-1-1).
The Presidents Cup is a unique golf tournament, as there is no prize money involved. That’s a far cry from LIV Golf, where the money is so audacious that the last-place finisher in this week’s tournament in England will still receive $120,000. The first-place finisher wins $4 million. The first-place finisher at the PGA’s RBC Canadian Open this weekend will win less than half of that.
LIV Golf is backed by Saudi Arabia in what a number of critics have derided as sportswashing. In this case, it appears that a conservative, wildly rich Muslim monarchy with a history of human rights abuses is attempting to repair its global reputation by building a new worldwide golf series.
The current and former golfers who took the money are now tasked with trying to defend Saudi Arabia for its sins and have tied themselves into knots trying to do so. Most egregious was LIV Golf’s frontman Greg Norman, the former Australian golf champion, saying “we’ve all made mistakes” when discussing the 2018 murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
But the money — and this bears repeating — is ridiculously good. Think of it this way: What would you be willing to do, and who would you be willing to do it for, if someone offered you $100 million?
Johnson, a former world No. 1 and a South Carolina native, reportedly received $150 million for committing to LIV Golf. Mickelson may have gotten even more.
LIV Golf doesn’t have a TV contract yet — it is streaming its first tournament this weekend — and its format is unusual. It has 54-hole tournaments, shotgun starts and some sort of team component I still don’t understand.
But the new golf circuit has bought itself some instant prestige — or at least instant curiosity — by buying the loyalty of some of the world’s best golfers. And in this gentlemanly sport, a rift has developed between those who stayed with the PGA Tour and those who left.
Said Rory McIlroy, who stayed with the PGA: “Any decision that you make in your life that’s purely for money usually doesn’t end up going the right way.”
The PGA Tour reacted strongly to LIV Golf’s official opening on Thursday and probably had to if it was going to prevent more defections. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement Thursday to PGA Tour members announcing the suspensions: “These players have made their choice for their own financial-based reasons. But they can’t demand the same PGA Tour membership benefits, considerations, opportunities and platform as you. That expectation disrespects you, our fans and our partners.”
The PGA also refuses to call LIV Golf by its preferred name in its press releases, referring to it instead as the “Saudi Golf League.” In turn, LIV Golf called the PGA’s statement “vindictive” Thursday. A legal battle surely is forthcoming.
In the meantime, though, Charlotte’s first-ever Presidents Cup keeps chugging along. Tickets are being sold. The course at Quail Hollow is being readied for thousands of fans. The Green Mile — holes 16, 17 and 18 — is being re-configured to become holes 13, 14 and 15 for this one event only, so that matches aren’t over before it gets its claws into the golfers.
For the sport of pro golf as a whole, the battle between the PGA and LIV is monumental. There really isn’t a bigger story in golf and there won’t be for months.
For the Presidents Cup in Charlotte, though, that thunderstorm is mostly still in the distance.
This story was originally published June 9, 2022 at 2:06 PM with the headline "How will controversial Saudi-financed golf series affect Presidents Cup in Charlotte?."
