Donald Trump will once again be on LIV Golf hosting duty this week, as the Saudi-backed series heads to his Trump National course in Washington DC for LIV DC.
This is the first of three LIV Golf events this campaign that will take place at a course owned by the former President of the United States. After a trip to the US capital, Trump will also host events in Bedminster and Miami, just as he did in the breakaway circuit's maiden season last year.
Trump's involvement with LIV Golf will not come as a surprise to many, with the Republican a keen golfer and friends of both Greg Norman and the Saudi Arabian chiefs in charge.
His first public declaration of support for the rebel league came when hosting Norman and co in Bedminster last summer. Trump was quick to defend LIV Golf's Saudi funding, and the Middle Eastern state's involvement in golf after many had labelled the breakaway circuit a sportswashing exercise.
“I’ve known these people for a long time," he said of the Saudi chiefs. They've been friends of mine for a long time. They’ve invested in many American companies. They own big percentages of many, many American companies and, frankly, what they’re doing for golf is so great.
"What they’re doing for the players is so great. The salaries are going to go way up.” It has been 12 months of drama in the world of professional golf, with LIV involved in an ugly battle with their new-found rivals over at the PGA Tour.
The Saudi-backed circuit has lured in a whole host of big names including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and recently crowned US PGA champion Brooks Koepka. And as time goes on, the former US President is expecting more big names to leave the Tour in search of the Saudi riches.
Trump commented: "You have really the best players in the world, many of the best players, and soon you'll probably have all of them. Remember this, if there's a merger [between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour], the people who didn't come will never get anything except a thank you from the people who took advantage of them...
“Now they have an alternative and nobody would have ever known there was going to be a gold rush like this.” Trump's links to LIV's bullish CEO Norman date back years, and their support for each other has been well documented, with the Australian even backing his American pal in the 2020 US Presidential election.
20 years earlier Trump wrote a glowing report of Norman for Golf Digest, claiming his critics are 'jealous' of the world No. 1: "Greg can be controversial, but people who profess to have a problem with Greg are just jealous," Trump wrote. "He looks better than they do, he plays better than they do, and he’s a better businessman. When you have attributes other people don’t have, jealousy is a very common reaction.”
