Not that this portends any kind of ‘victory’, moral or otherwise, for the Shark and his Sheikhs. Their claims of reinvigorating golf with a 54-hole format, shotgun starts and team scoring are fatuous.
The Studio 54 tour will gradually gain acceptance and attention, as all past professional breakaways have done over time, but none ever gained the legitimacy that professionals crave and this won’t either. It is simply a cash grab by the players, no different from billions of dollars’ worth of deals Australia and other high-minded countries do with the Saudi devil. As Kim Hughes says, and once did, they are merely gig economy workers taking a job.
Credit:Illustration: Simon Letch
The Shark’s claims of doing this to ‘grow golf’ will fail every conceivable pub test, unless the players get together and pool their sign-on fees to grow the game themselves. Or do something really good with their fabulous riches such as funding medical research or ending world hunger. Please don’t build any of them a spaceship; now that they’re zillionaires, they’ve got to be better than Jeff Bezos.
The shallowness of the exercise is underscored by the lack of explanation of the ’cause’ it is championing. It bears no resemblance to the World Series Cricket or professional tennis breakaways, which were gambits for compensation to justly reflect the income those performers brought to their sports. The golfers mutter darkly about the control the PGA holds over them, its America-first focus, restrictions of trade and the insufficient provision of courtesy cars and off-course snacks, and Norman himself has a historic grudge against the tour.
But then, Norman was once described as a guy who, when he walks into a zoo, will within five minutes be telling them they’re feeding the elephants the wrong kind of peanut. That’s just Norman.
He and his rebels are without a cause that can be easily communicated to anyone outside the private jet they fly around in. Instead of having a real just cause, the jet seems, with people like Reed, Johnson, Koepka, DeChambeau and Garcia aboard, like a flight of the disgruntled, all gathered in one plane to mutter darkly together. Among that bunch, you wouldn’t want to try claiming the window seat with the most legroom.
Smith breaks the mould, and if he joins the breakaway tour it gains not only competitive credibility with the world No.2, aged 28 and still to reach his prime, but also a strong likeability quotient. In the pub, there are increasing murmurs of ‘Well, wouldn’t you take that kind of money? And don’t our cars run on Saudi oil?’
Australian golf spectators, who have been done no great favors by the American PGA tour, would love to see Smith and Sharkie’s crew on our shores. As the outrage wears off, instead of being consigned to the dustbin of history, the rebel players will be essential to a reunited and reformed world tour. The pub may not like it, but history suggests that that is how it will play out.
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Whoever wins, there will be one sure loser, and that is the Saudis, fools who were easily parted from their money. They won’t notice the millions they have pissed away, but at some point, even in that solipsistic world that exists in Riyadh and London, someone will realize that they have not ‘sportswashed’ their reputation but only drawn global attention to their crimes and abuse.
Even when the golf breakaway gains enough leverage to win compromises from the PGA, the Saudis themselves gain nothing. That’s the puzzling thing about it all. There are understandable and even defensible motivations for every actor in this drama except for the rich dopes writing the checks. It is the world’s most futile vanity project. Smith and the rest will eventually be forgiven and pass the pub test again, but their Sheikhs will never be welcome in any pub, anywhere. Shame they don’t drink.
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