Deciding not to go to LIV Golf

Wisconsin probably won’t get another Major for a while, maybe ever. The closest PGA Tour stops are the 3M, John Deer, and the Rocket Mortgage in Detroit. A real who’s not who of rust belt golf. Why would I go to any of that when I could just as easily go to a Major, or some other tournament that will have a competitive field at a historic course? The PGA has kind of done the Midwest dirty, but nobody usually says that quiet part aloud.

The Ryder Cup will be back in Minnesota in a little over four years. I plan on going. The Presidents Cup will be at Medinah. I plan on going. Part of me hopes they have a Major or the BMW Championship somewhere close enough by. If they do, I’ll go to that. I go to the Am Fam Championship every couple of years, too. The conclusion is that if the PGA Tour has a worthwhile event near me, I’ll make a reasonable effort to go.

But what about the black sheep? LIV Golf has a Chicago leg. Morbid curiosity often gets the better of me, and I strongly considered pinching my nose shut and diving headfirst into that shit show. I love a good shit show. Still, the pros and cons list is a mile long. Let’s do a deep dive.

Saudi Arabia engages in sports washing. I love soccer, golf, and tennis. You can’t consume any media related to these things without washing it down with a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of sports washing. This argument has never made sense to me. Basically, some country buys sponsorships in sports to try to make itself look good despite being ethically checkered in other areas. Who are these people who are otherwise against these countries for morality who then compromise their values because ‘aww shucks, I love whatever sport they happen to be sponsoring.’ Like who? Who’s going to look the other way and then maybe buy other products or engage in tourism because of these sports sponsorships? Nobody. Plenty of people can find sports washing morally repugnant, and also still like sports. But nobody is compromising their values because their favorite soccer team or niche sport is funded this way.

The opposite is true. Plenty of people will not attend these events or buy merchandise. I thought about crossing the moral picket line and going to LIV Golf Chicago. My moral high horse isn’t so high and mighty that I will reject the opportunity to go out of hand. So why aren’t I going?

For one thing, I live in Milwaukee. Chicago is a day trip. I’d go for the PGA, because the PGA has events that last all day. LIV has a shotgun start, and the whole thing is over in a few hours. If I am going to put that much time into traveling to an event, it had better be worth it. The format is simply not. If it were like on the Illinois border, I might more seriously consider it.

LIV is a bunch of guys you can’t see every week on the PGA Tour. At the risk of my reputation, I’m a huge fan of Patrick Reed. He’s the bad guy, the villain, the guy most golf fans can’t stand. Love him. The sport needs more villains. I always thought Mickelson could have embraced this persona, too. Too bad he didn’t. But the thing LIV doesn’t want to admit is that you can see their best guys at Majors. You can pay to see their top players and have a much better spectator experience at the same time. You can’t do that every week, but you can sometimes.

So, who does LIV have that you can’t see at Majors? The answer is… or was… Anthony Kim. The Yeti. The legend. The rarest of all birds. LIV somehow negotiated to get him to come out of retirement and join their tour. He’s the one guy in their entire stable that you have to consume their product if you ever want to see. Ever. Only… they have their stupid rules about format and who competes. He got “relegated” and collects a salary but doesn’t actually play. Their one star attraction that they have exclusive rights to is paid not to play. I would have paid to see him play. I would have gone to the other side of Chicago to do it. But I can’t, because of arbitrary rules for a golf league that nobody watches to begin with. HE’S YOUR MAIN ATTRACTION! I guess there are Brooks, Bubba, and Bryson bros. There are probably a few die-hard Mickelson and Rahm fans, too. But look at your whole field, Anthony Fucking Kim is your product. And you demoted him in favor of some dudes whose own parents probably skip your events. He could shoot 100 and I’d still pay to see him, and only him, play.

I used to like Greg Norman. His apparel never broke the bank, while looking stylish. He had this Crocodile Dundee meets Jack Nicklaus vibe that was appealing. He even made Aussie hats cool. Before Tiger burst on the scene, Greg, Fred Couples, Daly, and a few others were the personalities that made the PGA Tour worth watching. That was like thirty years ago. Longer, probably. How Greg Norman has fallen. He went from cool guy to the epitome of revenge. He seemed like an alright dude, now his decades of pent-up anger have turned him into this Dorian Gray caricature that is completely unrecognizable from the guy who was arguably the face of golf in the late 80s and early 90s. No quantity of sports wash money can fill the asshole that is where Greg Norman’s heart is supposed to be.

I’ve heard things about the patrons at LIV events. They make the Waste Management Open look like tea with the Queen, if rumors are to be believed. Rumor has it that they blast arena rock wire to wire. It just sounds like obnoxious people doing obnoxious things the whole time. If one percent of the perception is reality, I shudder to think what it must be like to walk among those people. LIV Golf, count me the F out.