ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Long before Paul Lawrie clipped the first ball off the ancient linksland of the Old Course to begin the 150th Open Championship, it was obvious that the Royal & Ancient was stiff-arming the royal and affluent of LIV Golf this week in St. Andrews.
The maladroit CEO of the Saudi-funded splinter circuit, Greg Norman, won two Opens yet was deemed undeserving of a place at either the past champions’ dinner or the Celebration of Champions exhibition, which are held only when the Open is contested at golf’s ancestral home. That his exclusion was publicly endorsed by multiple players illustrates the disdain with which Norman is widely viewed, but the R&A also suspected he would use the Open to pimp LIV Golf.
The R&A’s chief executive, Martin Slumbers, didn’t stop at wrapping the Great White Pilot Fish in a newspaper and marking him ‘Return to Sender’ to Riyadh. He was strident in making clear his determination to defend the Open but also his willingness to enlist the championship in defense of the broader sport.
“We have been asked quite frequently about banning players. Let me be very clear. That’s not on our agenda,” he said, briefly providing Norman another hopeful moment at a major that was soon dashed. “What is on our agenda is that we will review our exemptions and qualifications criteria for The Open. Players have to earn their place in The Open, and that is fundamental to its ethos and its unique global appeal.”
Slumbers left no doubt that LIV Golf — its ranks oversubscribed with banged-up veterans and no-name journeymen — isn’t a valid pathway into golf’s greatest championship. “Professional golfers are entitled to choose where they want to play and to accept the prize money that’s offered to them. I have absolutely no issue with that at all. But there is no such thing as a free lunch,” he said. “I believe the model we’ve seen at Centurion and Pumpkin Ridge is not in the best long-term interests of the sport as a whole and is entirely driven by money. We believe it undermines the merit-based culture and the spirit of open competition that makes golf so special.”
To players who hoped to continue taking spots in majors based on the vapors of past accomplishments, Slumbers made clear he’s not having it. The Open will remain open to the best players in the world, he insisted, while emphasizing that LIV members are no longer actually proving themselves against the best. The Open will not be used by emeritus golfers who took the lazy, lucrative option.
150th Open Championship: Tee times | Leaderboard
Slumbers then tied a bow around his ‘get lost’ letter to LIV: “In my opinion, the continued commentary that this is about growing the game is just not credible and if anything, is harming the perception of our sport which we are working so hard to improve.”
Finally, someone in golf’s government delivered the unambiguous clarity required to combat the Saudi effort to hijack the professional game.
LIV Golf players competing in St. Andrews can’t have missed the chill, in person and on paper. Ian Poulter, who used lawyers to force his way into the field at last week’s Scottish Open, was booed on the first tee. His starting time — fourth group out, in the company of two little-known Europeans — befitted a 46-year-old ranked outside the top 100 and seven years removed from his last top 10 finish at a major. Some of his fellow travelers might have expected more grace on the pairings sheet, but Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed, Bryson DeChambeau, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Abraham Ancer and Louis Oosthuizen — a runaway winner here in 2010 — all found themselves far short of marquee group status. Only Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson could boast playing partners of real stature.
The LIV defectors shouldn’t expect their reception in the locker room to remain collegial either, if the words of Tiger Woods are an indicator. “I think that what they’ve done is they’ve turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position,” he said.
Sniping about loyalty aside, Woods cut to the jugular of LIV — competition, or the lack thereof, and left the impression that he regards its players as akin to Harlem Globetrotters who think they’re entitled to a spot on the roster of Steph Curry’s Warriors, mere entertainers with a guarantee and not athletes with a hunger.
“What is the incentive to practice? What is the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt? You’re just getting paid a lot of money upfront and playing a few events and playing 54 holes,” he said with barely-disguised contempt. “I can understand 54 holes is almost like a mandate when you get to the Senior tour. The guys are a little bit older and a little more banged up. But when you’re at this young age and some of these kids — they really are kids who have gone from amateur golf into that organization — 72-hole tests are part of it.”
“I just don’t see how that move is positive in the long term for a lot of these players, especially if the LIV organization doesn’t get world-ranking points and the major championships change their criteria for entering the events. It would be sad to see some of these young kids never get a chance to experience what we’ve got a chance to experience and walk these hallowed grounds and play in these championships.”
Thus LIV’s desperation to obtain world ranking points for its events. The process for a new tour to be granted such status is complex and lengthy, and LIV doesn’t meet several key criteria, but Norman is demanding affirmation a week after filing the application. He knows LIV can only survive as a parasite on the legacy model it vows to upend, can only gain traction and respectability by using the apparatus of the establishment he loathes — chiefly, world ranking points and major championships.
Slumbers made clear that he will defend the integrity of the sport against the stain of Saudi ownership, a war distinct from the lesser battle being waged by the PGA and DP World tours against LIV. It’s not outlandish to assume that his peers will make equally clear that their major championships won’t become collateral damage in this conflict.
A week intended to celebrate a century-and-a-half of history has instead become a polite cage fight for the future. Those surprised by Slumbers’ intervention will have been astonished by that of Woods. For the entirety of his public life, which neatly overlaps with his entire adult life, Woods defiantly avoided being conscripted into causes he didn’t believe were his, social or political. He always did and said what was best for Tiger, and what was usually best for Tiger was doing and saying nothing. But this week, Woods chose sides and made clear his willingness to fight those who would auction golf to the Saudis for their own enrichment. In the fullness of time, those two long-ago Claret Jugs might not be the most significant contribution he makes to this game in St. Andrews.
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