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LIV and let die

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It was bad enough that the so-called LIV tour ever got off the ground but now it has officially been "Trumped."  It makes you wonder if part of the deal all along was to use Trump's many golf courses, as the PGA had terminated its association with Trump over the January 6 insurrection, cancelling its championship at Bedminster that was scheduled for this year.  Right on cue, the Saudis were there to bail him out again.  The most recent LIV tournament was a dud all the way around and you have to figure the Saudis won't keep pouring their money into a losing cause for very long.  

The LIV tour was apparently the brainchild of Greg Norman, aka the Shark, who was assigned with drawing top names to the rival golf tour.  The irony of playing at Bedminster is that it is a par 71 course, so a 53, or LIII, would be a birdy on every hole.  Like everything else about this tour, it is built on gimmicks with the the title derived from scoring a 54 on a par-72 course, or LIV.   

Norman managed to attract Mickelson, long a crowd favorite on the PGA tour and a few other high profile names, but he failed to net the biggest names in PGA golf, like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.  According to the Shark, The Saudis were willing to offer as much as 800 million dollars to get Tiger to join the tour.   All the incentives are up front with golfers guaranteed millions in advance so that the only thing they have to play for is bragging rights.

It probably would have been best if they just made it a seniors tour.  I don't know why else you would pay guys like Tiger and Phil that kind of money other than name recognition.  I'm sure they could have lured John Daly and a few other former greats on the tour, especially since they ride around in carts anyway.  It's like one of those "dogfights" at the local course on Saturdays.

Before this weekend, it was a feud between Norman and the PGA, now it has become a broader political feud with Trump actively taking a side and bringing his MAGA entourage with him.  Even Ivana was in attendance, in what has to be one of the most ignominious resting places ever.  

Greg Norman has been getting a lot of air on Fox and other conservative outlets.  I'm not sure how this plays among the MAGA crowd, who are more into stock car racing and tournament fishing, but Trump was offering tickets to the LIV tournament for as little as one dollar to try to build a PGA-size crowd for the event.    

Nevertheless, this road show got plenty of coverage on all the networks, if mostly to be made fun of.  What's worse is that it has made once highly popular golfers like Norman and Mickelson into pariahs.  You have to ask if it is worth it for these guys, as they were both fabulously rich to begin with?  Maybe not in Tiger Woods' ballpark, but worth somewhere between 300 and 400 million dollars each before signing onto this fiasco.  

LIV literally brings together all the worst elements.  Mickelson was seemingly aware of this but willing to look the other way because it would virtually double his wealth overnight.  Norman was not only willing to look the other way but actively defended the Saudi royal family, whom he thinks has gotten a bad rap.  All's fair in love and golf, I guess.

Sadly, Biden didn't exactly distinguish himself by visiting the House of Saud in July.  It may have been where he got COVID.  The President had a broader mission in mind. He hoped to get the Saudis to pump more oil into the economy to offset the loss of Russian oil.  Still, any meeting with the notorious Crowned Prince is seen as a sell out, and there were probably better ways to address this issue. 

I don't think LIV will live long.  It is a folly, like most things the Saudis do these days, but for now they can do the old man a favor and tour Trump's clubs around the world, laundering their oil money in the process.  However, for those golfers who decided to play along, it will be a long time before they get their good name back, if ever.

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