For a sport that prides itself on values like honesty, honor and integrity, golf sure seems over-populated with people whose word is worth about as much as a phlegm sundae on a sweltering day. ’Twas always thus, of course, no matter how energetically the PGA Tour marketed everyone as being of admirable character and charitable bearing. Thanks to Greg Norman’s ongoing abuse of the Clown Prince’s checkbook, at least now less work is required to identify the game’s most hollow charlatans. Just lob a dart at the LIV Golf line-up. And don’t feel the need to aim carefully.
Dishonesty and cowardice are two traits common to many players who have decamped to LIV Golf. They lie about their intent to join the Saudi-backed outfit and continually compound that by refusing to admit they did so for money, cowering behind codswallop about growing the game (they’re not) or setting their own schedule (they can’t). It’s an expanding roster of golfers who once insisted they’d never do exactly what they did whenever the Saudis found the inflection point in their spines, where cash trumps conscience.
LIV’s latest recruit is its least surprising: Henrik Stenson, the duration of whose Ryder Cup captaincy compares unfavorably to that of a Kardashian marriage. A few hours after Ryder Cup Europe announced his dismissal, Stenson released a statement expressing disappointment that jumping to the Saudis had cost him the job, perhaps forgetting that just four months ago he signed a contract that forbade him from doing just that.
