LIV has paid big money for golfers past their best. Will the Saudis care? | Ewan Murray

Henrik Stenson has not won since 2017 and like García, Poulter, Mickelson and Westwood is being paid on name not form

Sportswashing is not supposed to make commercial sense. Therein lies the reason that no normally functioning business saw fit to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at a disruption plan for golf. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) can attempt to rebrand a kingdom for which the murder of a journalist and human rights atrocities are typical reference points with the benefit of an apparently bottomless pit of cash. If the PGA and DP World Tours find themselves embroiled in a commercial long game with the Saudi-backed LIV Series, they know they will be outmuscled.

Events of recent days did, however, serve as a reminder of what advantage players of a certain vintage have taken of Saudis bearing gifts. There is cause to ponder the point at which the PIF – which is by very definition answerable to somebody – reflects on the value of golfers who have slipped towards irrelevance. That day of reckoning will arrive. It is merely a question of when.