One of the reasons I'm enjoying the PGA versus LIV brouhaha is because it's rare to actually witness this much irony and absurdity packed into a sports argument. The PGA, which for the entirety of its existence has relied on one-percenters to fill its competitive ranks and also to buy its sponsors' products, is shocked, shocked I tell you, to find that a top one percent of its one-percenters has decided to give the PGA a good spanking.
Watching an attempted monopoly twist in the wind because it lacks the funding to compete on equal terms with what amounts to a proprietorship is...quite funny. All that American wealth overmatched by non-American wealth. It doesn't happen that often. We should appreciate the show.
The Transience of Sponsors and Morality
Some LIV golfers have already lost sponsorships. The Saudis, if they choose, have the ability to compensate folks for any sponsorship losses. One interesting question is whether Nike, they of the civil rights abuses and sweatshops made famous by Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury series, will decide to announce some moral high ground. Nike's worst abuses appear to have been 20 years ago, which brings up the whole morality-as-current-fashion dilemma. The Saudis are considerably behind the Western world curve when it comes to human rights in general and women's rights in particular. The argument being made is that they are so behind the times that no one should partner with them. The problem with this perspective is that it frames morality as some kind of seasonal fashion. Everyone is doing this now; so too should the Saudis. But most nations' mores and morality of a hundred or even fifty years ago don't get drawn into the discussion because, well, such things should evolve, you know? And keeping up with the Westerners should be every bit as important as keeping up with the Joneses.
It's a debatable high-handed argument -- morality evolves and becomes unceasingly better, in some sense. Legality evolves. What was acceptable then needs to be superceded by what's acceptable now, and the now should supercede national or cultural barriers. I'm not trying to fit the Saudis with halos. Khashoggi's murder was hideous. But I'm pretty damned sure, as a point of comparison, that the number of people murdered by the CIA the last decade is not zero, so perhaps no one should hire on with the Americans. As to the manner of Khashoggi's murder, I'm not impressed by style points. Murder is murder, whether by strangling, CIA bullets, or Russian radioactivity. How bodies are treated after death is not a huge moral qualifier for me, either.
It was just a year ago that Americans wiped out an extended family in Kabul with a drone strike based on lousy intel. Many children died in that drone strike, and the sheer lack of respect for the non-American lives is hard to process. The strike was a blase act of muscle flexing. To me, that was way more horrendous than a strangling followed by a chainsaw. Using consistent logic, no one should allow the United States to sportswash away its disrespect for human life.
Conclusion
The PGA Tour has spent many years as the Great White of the golf world. Now it's whining because Megalodon, ridden by Greg Norman, showed up. Today, Bryson DeChambeau revealed that he got a four-year $125 million deal with LIV, and much of the money was up front.
Well, PGA, it's going to be fun watching you twist in the sporting wind because you can't show them the money. If I were Jerry Maguire, I'd have a pretty good idea with whom my guys would be signing.
Bob Dietz
July 5, 2022
