Not everything remains unclear in the escalating war between the PGA Tour and its Saudi-funded rival, LIV Golf. We know, for example, that moral arguments are meaningless to the amoral, that calls for loyalty are futile if directed to the disloyal, that appeals to a greater good are worthless to the selfish, and that emotional pleas are ineffective to the indifferent, even from families of those killed on September 11th.
We know too that professional golfers view the current landscape in purely commercial terms: what’s the maximum they can be paid for the minimum amount of work?
The baggage that comes with any benefactor — which in this case includes the bonesaw dismembering of a critic, mass executions, systematic mistreatment of women and gays, and war crimes in Yemen — are mere moveable obstructions for those who have signed with LIV Golf and those who will do so. The next wave of announced players will spotlight men who lack the character to say no and didn’t have the courage to say yes until others had absorbed the initial volley of criticism and normalized it. But that wave is coming.
