By BRUCE LOWITT
Dustin Johnson and dozens of other players who abandoned the PGA for the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour are insisting that just because they’re making tons of money they shouldn’t be prevented from making tons more.
“I’ve finished in the top ten in all five LIV invitationals I’ve played including tying for second twice, for third once and even winning at Boston, beating British Open champion Cam Smith,” Johnson said. “But since then I’ve dropped from 13th to 23rd in the OWGR (Official World Golf Rankings).
“I mean, do you think Adidas, TaylorMade and the rest of my sponsors are going to keep shoveling money into my wallet if I’m not up there with (Scottie) Scheffler, (Rory) McIlroy and the rest of the hotshots?” Johnson complained. “How the hell does that look?”
He is receiving about $11-million a year for his endorsements, roughly the same as Scheffler makes – but only about one-third of what McIlroy is paid by his sponsors.
The problem for the LIV golfers – besides the fact that their tour is bankrolled by an Arab government that murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, is among the world leaders in beheadings and other executions, routinely uses torture, bans public gatherings, jails activists, discriminates against women …
Okay, the other problem for the LIV golfers besides all that is the OWGR not including the results of LIV events (limited to 48 competitors compared to 132-156 that start a PGA event), that they play only 54 holes (compared to the PGA’s 72), that there are no cuts (PGA events cut the field after 36 holes) and that, having jumped to the LIV tour, they’re no longer welcome at PGA events.
In a letter signed by all 48 LIV golfers at last week’s tournament in Chicago and sent to OWGA chairman Peter Dawson, they said their exclusion from the rankings “sucks. It really, really, really hurts our chances to qualify for the four major tournaments.”
“What’s more, it pisses off the people who want to go each year with us to the British Open in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland,” the letter said. “We’re talking about our wives or girlfriends, sometimes both.”
The Presidents Cup tournament this weekend at the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C., will lose some of its sheen because top LIV golfers are missing from both the United States and international teams.
“Still, it could be worse,” said Team USA captain Davis Love III. “Remember 2017? We had Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama posing with the cup at Liberty National in Jersey City (N.J.) when you-know-who, the fat orange guy then in the White House, swiped it,” Love said. “He yelled, ‘I’m the president so it’s mine!‘ Then he tried to sell it at a MAGA rally. Took us a week to get the fried chicken stink off it.”
LIV Commissioner and CEO Greg Norman said the current brouhaha between his tour and the PGA probably will be resolved in the coming months.
“I see two likely ways to settle this,” he said. “One way is we go from 54 holes – that’s how we got the name; LIV is 54 in Roman numerals – to 72 holes, just like the PGA. Of course, we might have some problems saying ‘LXXII Tournament’ because … Great, I just spit all over my jacket.
“The other way is simpler,” Norman said. “We ask the Saudis for more money and just buy the freakin’ PGA.”
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