LIV Golf: All relatively quiet on the publicity front but golf still in the rough

On the range Phil Mickelson is hitting balls out over the gently rolling hills of Hertfordshire. A small team gather around him admiring each willowy swing. No more than 50 yards away, Louis Oosthuizen stands on the first tee ready to take on the dog-leg left first hole. Irishman Colin Byrne is on his bag. Graeme McDowell will follow.

Above, on a small rise overlooking them all, Greg Norman is outside Club 54, a large hospitality suite with a public viewing gallery that wraps around the 18th green. Fifty-four because LIV golf is 54 holes. The Shark strikes a pose that says do not approach. His arms are folded, his shades dark.

By the Ping lorry parked near the course entrance beside the temporary LIV Golf administration building, a chauffeur-driven Bentley pulls up and stops. Amit Bhatia steps out from the back. Bhatia’s wife is Vanisha Mittal, the daughter of steel tycoon and chairman and chief executive of ArcelorMittal, Lakshmi Mittal. The couple’s 2004 wedding reportedly cost $60 million.

It is pro-am day at the 2023 LIV Golf-London at the Centurion Club, a 90-minute drive north of the city and Bhatia is teamed with the five-time major champion Brooks Koepka.

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Twice-Masters winner Bubba Watson is in a later group. He plays with Abdulrahman Khalid Al-Dabal of Saudi Arabia, who is chairman of Gas Arabian Services. Bosnian goalkeeper Asmir Begovic and entrepreneur Lynwood Bibbens make up the final four-ball of the day.

There is a variety of people playing. Former champion jockey Tony McCoy, former England rugby player Matt Banahan and former professional cricketer Darren Gough are all teeing up. So is Jim Packer, the son of Kerry Packer, said to be the richest man in Australia when he died in 2005.

Kerry Packer was best known for founding World Series Cricket in the 1970s, which drastically changed the nature of the game and led to a confrontation with the cricket authorities, as top players from several countries rushed to join him at the expense of their international sides. The Packer family understands the empowerment of seismic change and how it creates opportunity.

To all the players, the LIV tournament is a welcome restructuring of World Golf, a better, more modern product that has enriched them further and will continue to do so. The current 2023 player standings confirm that. Talor Gooch leads the money with $13,376,583 from eight events. Koepka, who has also played eight times, is second on $8,745,833. The 30th player on the table is Paul Casey with $2,067,500 from seven outings.

To others, LIV Golf is a House of Saud advertising spend to normalise a despotic monarchy in decay, and they take issue with the act of a government or a regime investing in golf to deflect from issues such as human rights violations. LIV is backed by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF), an entity controlled by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

[ US Senate opens inquiry into PGA Tour-LIV merger ]

The finer details of the deal remain ambiguous. What is clear is that the two established tours have agreed to join forces as part of one for-profit commercial entity that will run golf at its elite level. But there remain hurdles. The US Justice Department has notified the PGA Tour of its intention to review the deal, citing antitrust concerns.

“I have no idea how the peace deal will look,” says Lee Westwood, reflecting most player’s views.

At the Centurion Club the effort seems – now that the merger has happened – to play that exceptional event as normal. Play LIV as a done deal, a year of normalisation. Play it as old, boring and dealt with, little more than the choppy waters of change.

“I’m just glad to see that it’s finally sort of come back to just golf again and that the fighting can stop and that everyone can just do their thing,” says Oosthuizen. “I’ve had a good career in golf and I was sort of on my final stages there on the PGA Tour, was thinking about maybe even stopping after 2021 and then this opportunity came.”

His team-mate in LIV, Charl Schwartzel, banked $4.75 million last year by winning the inaugural London tournament. He held on for a one-shot win to secure the $4 million prize for the individual victory, along with another $750,000 from his share of the $3 million purse earned by his four-man Stinger team for topping the team rankings. Dustin Johnson earned $35,637,767 last year, McDowell $2,373,381.

“I think standing here looking back, there’s really not much that could have happened any differently,” says McDowell. “I think the respective tours reacted in the only sort of defensible way that they had, which was to try to attack the weaknesses that they saw within this product. Thankfully common sense has prevailed.

“There’s absolutely a place in the sport for something like this. We keep reiterating the team side of golf is one of the most compelling and interesting things for the fan at home. For me, the four Ryder Cups that I’ve played have been the greatest experience of my golfing career, and creating camaraderie, playing for each other, creating emotion.

“There’s been a lot of stuff written about the players out here the last 12 months. I think 12 months on, I take it much more with a pinch of salt than I did in the beginning. I think I took it a little too personally at the start. I look at the people that wrote these things, the professional people that wrote these things were really only protecting their own turf, representing the organisations that they were being paid to represent, which was all we were doing. We were representing the organisation we were being paid to represent, as well.

“I really don’t blame anyone. I understand the motivations for the narratives that were being created and, like I say, people were just trying to defend their territory in the only way they could. Sometimes it wasn’t very nice coming this direction.”

The players feel more emboldened by the merger, with South Africa’s Brandon Grace referring to the LIV Tour as like playing for 14 Majors. He, along with Oosthuizen and Schwartzel, have also qualified for the British Open next week at the Royal Liverpool course in Hoylake. It’s an important outlet for them as they were inspired to take up golf watching tournaments such as the British Open and the US Masters.

Koepka also proved that playing the less onerous LIV Tour, with fewer events and more money, does not dull the competitive edge. Winning this year’s US PGA event was a statement. But it does not paper over all the cracks. There is bubbling resentment that LIV players continue to pay for the perceived treachery of taking the Saudi dollar. The events do not earn players ranking points. But they are permitted to play the majors.

[ Golf deal latest proof that money talks, so sportswashing works ]

The final qualifying rounds for this year’s British Open were held last Tuesday at Dundonald Links, Royal Cinque Ports, Royal Porthcawl and West Lancashire. But Westwood and Ian Poulter decided not to participate.

“I’m 47. Lee is 50,” says Poulter. “No one needs to say how old I am,” quips Westwood standing beside him.

“It’s not easy to play 36 holes, [and then] travel back rom Europe,” adds Poulter. “I’m not a spring chicken any more. Obviously, I’d like to have made the Open Championship. But I’d like to have made it through the world ranking points system, which we know is not there.”

Westwood has also felt a cold shoulder from the senior tour. Reminders are everywhere that the agreed merger was made over players’ heads and is not universally accepted.

“I sit down at the start of the year, do a schedule, thought it was a good opportunity to play my first ever seniors’ event, which is the week after the Open,” says Westwood.

“So, I’d entered and committed to that. Unfortunately, the Senior Open doesn’t look to be as open as the Open Championship, so I was barred from playing in that.”

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Friday in the Centurion Club is perfect for the shotgun start, with temperatures touching 30 degrees. Koepka, Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, looking all business, are grouped together and start their rounds on the second hole.

Not far from where they stand the LIV slogan blares out “Golf But Louder”. In the public area of the club, the fenced-off drinking area with cube rattan outdoor furniture seems more chic than rebellious. There’s also an old red London double decker bus with Fish & Chips emblazoned across the side, and a nine-hole crazy golf course, a chipping challenge bearing Poulter’s image and, to enhance the hipster loudness, a tattoo parlour. “Get Inked LIV Golf,” it says.

The hard sell is that the warring has stopped. What remains is an undertone of suffering, denial and hurt. Both sides claim victims. With that they can expect an uneasy kind of peace.