The players found out the same way you and I did: on Twitter.
Joel Dahmen was going through his morning routine when he got a text from a buddy.
He couldn’t believe it was real.
“I’m like, no shot,” Dahmen said.
Harris English was in complete and utter disbelief.
It is, in fact, real.
There are so, so many questions yet to be answered.
The players, obviously.
It goes on and on, and there are way more question marks than certainties at this point.
His initial goal was to stomp this thing out, to nip it at the root.
By doing that, they’d stop the bleed of players moving over.
In turn, that would take some buzz away from LIV Golf.
People wouldn’t watch as much.
That was never going to happen.
Saudi money is simply on a different scale.
They just paid a 35-year-old soccer player $215 million per year to play in their country.
Players are noticing the about-face.
Wish golf world like that.
I guess money always wins."
Which brings us to our next point…one has a lot more money than the other.
It was always a pipe dream.
LIV was never going to succeed on its own.
the PGA Tour, on the other hand could not afford it.
They had no choice but to beef up their prize money if they wanted to keep the players.
But unlike the Saudi government, the PGA Tour can’t just funnel billions of dollars to professional golfers.
If the Tour couldn’t keep up money-wise, eventually more and more players would leave.
At some point, that reaches a critical mass.
Did the DOJ investigation have a role?
And the PGA Tour decided it’s in its own best interest to merge?
In other legal news, both sides agreed to drop all pending litigation against each other.
The only unhappy people with that development are the lawyers who won’t get paid quite as much.
The players are shocked…and pissed?
“This is supposed to be a member-run organization and they didn’t tell us shit.”
That’s how one player put it.
That’s hard to take seriously given how this played out.
If players knew this was a possibility, we would’ve heard about it last week at Memorial.
For all that to be kept from the players is sort of amazing in today’s ecosystem.
“I’m shocked and disgusted by the lack of communication,” says Nico Echavarria.
How do you handle the LIV guys who took the money…and the ones who didn’t?
They stayed loyal to the tour.
Some turned down generational sums of money.
Rickie Fowler reportedly turned down $75 million.
Hideki Matsuyama, the rumors had it around $300 million.
That’s going to rub a ton of people the wrong way.
I think back to what Matt Fitzpatrick said on the Fore Play Podcast in March.
I would not let them back, Fitzpatrick said.
You made your choice.
I dont think you should be allowed back.
That would be my argument.
(A guy like Phil Mickelson, for example, would likely stand to pay more).
But who is that money going to?
Will it be distributed to the PGA Tour players who stayed loyal?
What will the schedule and tournaments look like?
Again, the statement provided only very loose information.
But that’s a far-off proposition.
So what’s on the docket int he near future?
For 2023, no changesthe PGA Tour will complete its season and LIV will complete its.
That would seem to suggest they’re moving forward with the designated events model.
But will LIV Golf’s format be involved in some capacity?
Will there be team competitions?
Will players get equity in those teams?
Will there be any “LIV” events at all?
Again, all this is yet to play out.
This is just the beginning of this story.
The morality argument loses.
Money wins
Money over morality.
At the end of the day, this is what’s happening.
That’s not a judgement but merely an evaluation.
The PGA Tour spent so much time and energy telling us how bad the Saudis are.
Guys like Brandel Chamblee and Eamon Lynch have been hammering that point for months.
That’s all true, and it all remains true.
Nothing has changed on that front in the last 12 months.
And yet, there’s Jay Monahan speaking on CNBC alongside Yasir al-Rumayyan.
Al-Rumayyan will now be a member of the PGA Tour policy board.
This is what they wanted: to be accepted into the sporting ecosystem.
To have a seat at the table.
To get involved in sport and use it as a way to normalize themselves to the west.
The PGA Tour did everything in its power to stop that from happening.
In the end, there was simply too much money.
And as depressing as it might be, it remains true: money always wins.
