The sport’s arbiters, the R&A and USGA, must find a solution so the Saudi-backed LIV Series can coexist with established toursThe 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...
Golf can offer sublime entertainment but is not a sport with any deep sense of social conscience. Why pretend otherwise?The centre cannot hold. All that is pure is gone. They’re shaving Aslan’s mane up there at the Centurion Club in Hemel Hempstead. And it has, of course, been genuinely shocking to see the grand old community game of professional golf, with its deep social ties, the beating heart of our post-industrial towns, reduced so easily to a row of shrugging men in leisure wear doing stuff on their own for money.This is after all the people’s game, or at least the People Like Us game, still played on every cobbled street and in every playground, providing that playground is at...
There is very little competitive validity in the LIV Golf Series, with golfers willing pawns in the sportswashing exerciseThere is a key problem with the distribution of a $4m (£3.2m) first prize in a tournament that features a shotgun start. There will be no way of knowing if the winning putt at the Centurion Club on Saturday is to be holed on the 1st, 7th, 13th or any other green. Perhaps the conventional stroke-play format as used on mainstream tours is boring to some but at least people know where to be for the denouement.If this were the only potentially messy element of the LIV Golf Series, which makes its debut in Hertfordshire on Thursday, Greg Norman would have no...
Golfers such as Lee Westwood embracing LIV tournaments of little quality and ignoring human rights are damaging the sportDespite Lee Westwood’s claims, golfers have not been singled out for special attention during dalliances with Saudi Arabia. In fact the ease with which the Saudis have breezed into the golf scene – both male and female – serves as a reminder of the charmed life players lead. What a rude awakening they – and their representatives – would encounter if they had the levels of focus bestowed on Premier League clubs.Westwood is candid about participating in the upcoming LIV Golf Series on the basis of chasing money. As a cost of living crisis impacts upon the ability of millions to heat...
Golfers such as Lee Westwood embracing LIV tournaments of little quality and ignoring human rights are damaging the sportDespite Lee Westwood’s claims, golfers have not been singled out for special attention during dalliances with Saudi Arabia. In fact the ease with which the Saudis have breezed into the golf scene – both male and female – serves as a reminder of the charmed life players lead. What a rude awakening they – and their representatives – would encounter if they had the levels of focus bestowed on Premier League clubs.Westwood is candid about participating in the upcoming LIV Golf Series on the basis of chasing money. As a cost of living crisis impacts upon the ability of millions to heat...