Golf must calm the professional waters and bring an end to its civil war | Ewan Murray

The sport’s arbiters, the R&A and USGA, must find a solution so the Saudi-backed LIV Series can coexist with established tours

The return this week of the US Open to the Country Club in Brookline for the first time since 1988 would ordinarily be a cause for reflection. The 1999 Ryder Cup there was laced with controversy after a ferocious European reaction to premature US celebrations.

There will be only passing reference to Curtis Strange’s playoff success over Nick Faldo. Sam Torrance and his famous broadside – “Tom Lehman calls himself a man of God. That was not the behaviour of a man of God” – likewise. Even the course setup presided over by the United States Golf Association, an annual debating point, feels irrelevant. Civil war dominates golf; it will dominate the US Open. It will dominate next month’s Open at St Andrews despite the R&A’s screams about the significance of a 150th anniversary celebration.