Reaction To News Golf’s Rival Threesome Now To Share The Same Umbrella.

Not only the golf world but sport in general is soaking-in the shock news earlier today, and coming just three days before the first-year anniversary of the maiden LIV Tour event in north London, that the three main warring bodies in men’s professional golf are shaking hands.

The PGA Tour and it’s sister body the DP World Tour have agreed to join forces with their enemy LIV Golf, signing a deal with LIV Golf’s Saudi-backed financial sponsors that will bring the three golfing bodies under the same umbrella.

In a statement, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, who just one year ago was calling LIV Golf an “an irrational threat”, said, “After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love.”

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan now singing the praise of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf and speaking to the delight of now coming under the same three-tour umbrella

What Monahan said afterwards was that the ‘tension’ that had been in place was now gone and called on those criticism the news in an interview with CNN not to be criticism the news but to think ahead and that is what will be the benefits to the game in 10-years time.

Hereunder is both LIV Golf, PGA Tour and other early player reaction to the news:

Phil Mickelson tweeted three words to show his delight at the news:  “Awesome day today”.

Of course, the six-time major champion has become one of the more disliked LIV players, and in what was a complete 360 from his overwhelming popularity prior to joining LIV. Mickelson’s 62-year-old former long-time friend slammed ‘Lefty’ saying he was never going to again talke with Mickelson and that he was also acting ‘stupid’ in press conferences Mickelson had been in attendance.

Brooks Koepka did not hesitate to rub salt in the wound.

Immediately after Tuesday’s bombshell news of the controversial LIV Golf circuit agreeing to a merge with the PGA Tour, Koepka took a shot at Brandel Chamblee, the Golf Channel analyst who has been among the Saudi-backed tour’s most outspoken critics.

“Welfare Check on Chamblee,” Koepka tweeted.

Chamblee, who is also a former PGA Tour pro, has frequently spoken out against LIV, accusing the players who took the payouts to join the rebel circuit — including Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed — of helping the Saudi regime “sports wash” their image.

Last year, Reed filed a $750 million lawsuit against Chamblee and the Golf Channel, with the 2018 Masters winner accusing the analyst of “calculated, malicious” attacks that have “had a direct effect on his livelihood.”

Since, Chamblee has been a target of LIV golfers’ ire — and has doubled down on his attacks against the rival circuits.

The reliably droll Joel Dahmen tweeted a dig at LIV Golf’s team format: “I’ve grown up being a fan of the 4 Aces. Maybe one day I get to play for them on the PGA Tour!”

Wesley Bryan

PGA Tour player had reason to be unhappy in the manner the Tour advised its players tweeting: “Love finding out info on Twitter. This is amazing. Y’all should be ashamed and have a lot of questions to answer”.

Of course, we now know Monahan wrote to each player.

Collin Morikawa

Double major winning Collin Morikawa, and like Bryan, expressed his disappointment with the PGA Tour.

“I love finding out morning news on Twitter,” Morikawa tweeted.

Mackenzie Hughes

The Canadian got onto Twitter with much the same message as his PGA Tour colleagues:  “Nothing like finding out through Twitter that we’re merging with a tour that we said we’d never do that with”.

Michael Kim

Fellow American PGA Tour player Michael Kim wrote: “Very curious how many people knew this deal was happening. About 5-7 people? Player run organization right?”

Joel Dahmen

The reliably droll Joel Dahmen tweeted a dig at LIV Golf’s team format: “I’ve grown up being a fan of the 4 Aces. Maybe one day I get to play for them on the PGA Tour!”

Ben An

“I’m guessing the LIV teams were struggling to get sponsors and PGA Tour couldn’t turn down the money.

“Win-win for both tours but it’s a big lose for who defended the tour for last two years.”

Amnesty International

Amnesty International expressed concern at what it saw as a further attempt by Saudi Arabia to launder its human rights record through the vehicle of sport.

“While this may have taken some golf fans and commentators by surprise, it’s really just more evidence of the onward march of Saudi sportswashing,” Amnesty UK’s Felix Jakens said.

“It’s been clear for some time that Saudi Arabia was prepared to use vast amounts of money to muscle its way into top-tier golf – just part of a wider effort to become a major sporting power and to try to distract attention from the country’s atrocious human rights record.”

R & A

R&A CEO Martin Slumbers welcomed the news of the agreement, writing in a statement: “We care deeply about golf’s future and are committed to ensuring that the sport continues to thrive for many years to come.

“This agreement represents a huge step toward achieving that goal for golf and we look forward to working with the new entity for the benefit of the sport globally.”

Scott Van Pelt 

Scott Van Pelt took to Twiiter quotin rapper Nino Brown’s famous line: “Always business, never personal.”

“So, you preach loyalty to a tour and convince guys not to take 8 and 9 figure deals based, in part, on that loyalty and, in part, on the source of the money,” Van Pelt wrote.

“Then those guys find out on Twitter YOU took the very same money?”

US SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY (Democrat)

Sen. Chris Murphy was among those to immediately express skepticism of the PGA Tour’s prior supposed commitments to human rights:

“So weird. PGA officials were in my office just months ago talking about how the Saudis’ human rights record should disqualify them from having a stake in a major American sport,” Murphy tweeted in response to the news.

“I guess maybe their concerns weren’t really about human rights?”

ADAM HADWIN – Teeing up this week in his national Open 

“I thought about that (Tour news overshadowing the Canadian Open) coming here as well. I think it’s — you know last year was the return of the Canadian Open after having missed two. And it was going up against the first LIV event. And I know that that sort of overshadowed early in the week. Obviously with the event that took place it worked out as a massive win.

“I can’t help but feel sad for the Canadian Open, once again, that this news drops Tuesday of what is our National Open, a very important event for golf in Canada and hopefully viewed from the PGA Tour’s standpoint as an important event to them. Now once again we’re overshadowed what, like you said, most likely for the entire week.

“My hope is that we end up with hopefully myself, if not myself two or three other Canadians in contention, with Rory, with Justin Rose, with Tyrrell, with these guys, these top players that are here and we can put the emphasis back on the event, that what happened last year. But I can’t help but feel for the event now”.

…  More to follow

 



Comments are closed.