LIV Golf has gone over the edge when it comes to spending/blowing money from the pension funds of public employees in Saudi Arabia.
Now comes one Majed Al Sorour (aka LIV’s head Infidel) who has basically said they may create their own major championships if any of the current authentic/genuine/established majors ban LIV players.
Mum’s been the word around the entities that control the four major championships — The Masters (Augusta National Golf Club membership), the PGA (PGA Of America), the U.S. Open (USGA) and the Open Championship (R&A).
Sorour, a businessman with connections to the Saudi royal family, didn’t give details how LIV Golf and Saudi Golf would create their own majors but given the renegard tour’s propensity to wrecklessly spend money –larger purses and even more dirty money would be the obvious pathway.
“For now, the majors are siding with the (PGA) Tour, and I don’t know why,” Sorour said in an interview with New Yorker Magazine. “If the majors decide not to have our players play? I will celebrate. I will create my own majors for my players. Honestly, I think all the tours are being run by guys who don’t understand business.”
Seriously? You gotta love how a guy like Sorour, whose LIV circus/exhibition series has spent near a billion dollars without a return of one dollar on the investment. Wow, now there’s a guy who REALLY understands business.
Sorour got even more crazy in that interview with this claim: “We don’t kill gays, I’ll just tell you that.”
Evidently Sorour is not familiar with the criminal code in his home country. Here’s how it works per Wikipedia: The criminal code of Saudi Arabia are derived from the Islamic Sharia, from the seventh-century Quran and the prophetic teachings of Lut and Muhammad which has been meticulously preserved in the Sunnah. Homosexuality and being transgender are widely seen as immoral and indecent activities, and the law punishes acts of homosexuality or cross-dressing with capital punishment, fines, public whipping, beatings, torture, vigilante executions, vigilante attacks, chemical castrations, imprisonment up to life and deportation.
That being said, here’s the DogLegNews plan for LIV to create its own “majors”:
Spend $200 million to replicate the Augusta National Golf Club somewhere in the desert and hold the LIV Masters there.
Spend $300 million to replicate Pebble Beach and hold the LIV U.S. Opens there.
Spend $250 million to replicate The Old Course at St. Andrews and hold the LIV Open Championship there.
Spend $150 million and create a composite course of holes where PGA Championships have been held and have the LIV PGA there.
And there you go — for less than $1 billion, Monsieur Sorour can make it happen and host his own majors. Hey, as he said, he’s a businessman.
South Korea Hosts LPGA’s BMW Championship:
After two weeks off, the LPGA Tour is back in action this week in South Korea (Republic of Korea).
Oak Valley Country Club in Wonju is hosting the BMW Championship for the first time and world No. 1 Jin Young Ko is finally making her return to action after rehabbing a wrist injury.
Six of the top 10 players in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings are in this week’s field, including Ko. She’s joined by rookie and two-time LPGA Tour winner Atthaya Thitikul and 2022 U.S. Women’s Open champ Minjee Lee. Ko earned her 11thcareer victory in last year’s BMW Ladies Championship after defeating Hee Jeong Lim in a playoff.
Alongside Ko, Lee and Thitikul, thirteen other 2022 winners will compete for a purse of $2 million including Chevron champion Jennifer Kupcho and Women’s Open winner Ashleigh Buhai. There are twenty players from South Korea in the field.
8 Comments
forky76
What sets the majors apart is they have the best fields. We live in a world where money talks, and generally speaking pro golfers follow the money. That’s why the US & British Amateurs are no longer majors, as they don’t attract the world’s best players. The masters and the uspga took their place as they paid their competitors.
And we have seen that money buys majors on the lpga tour, who’s major season changes more often than greg norman choked at augusta.
Do I think liv can create their own majors? No. But they have done a lot of things this year I didn’t think they could. Never say never.
If liv players do become excluded from the majors going forward, then those events no longer have the best fields and they’ll eventually just become another co-sanctioned pga tour/ dp world tour event. Liv has about 12 of the top 50 players in the world. If the majors start excluding 25% of the world’s best from their events, they are devaluing the achievements of the guys that do win. No one wins from this mess.
Tom Edrington
Forky: I was looking at some of the “stiffs” on the LIV circus, the bottom feeders, a bunch have never played in a major and probably never will; What the majors have that other events don’t is HISTORY, TRADITION and a long list of some of the greatest names ever in the world of golf — LIV will never have anything like that……Majors create legacy, anyone who has ever played professionally wants there name on the major trophies with the greatest who have ever played the game — the Claret Jug — your name is on there with Old Tom Morris and Young Tom, Sarazen, Hogan — all the best from all over the world — same with The Masters, the US Open and the PGA.
forky76
For a long time, Arnold Palmer used to tell everyone that he had won 8 majors. Until at some point enough people began to say, hang on a minute Arnold, actually you have only won 7. The 1954 US Amateur does not count as the field was not strong enough. The US Amateur & British Amateur, two strong tournaments with HISTORY, TRADITION, just kicked to the kerb. No longer majors.
Fast forward to 2023, maybe Rory McIlroy wins the Masters next year to complete his grand slam. Maybe by the time we get to 2028 people also start to say, hang on a minute Rory, you’ve still only got 4 majors. The 2023 Masters doesn’t count. The field wasn’t good enough.
Interesting you bring up the name Old Tom Morris. As someone so critical of the LIV format, 54 holes, 48 players, no cut, I can’t imagine what you think of an Open champion crowned after completing 3 rounds of 12 holes (36 total) with no cut in a field size of 8. Must have been a total exhibition circus 🙂 Not a real win.
Tom Edrington
Forky: First of all you have made the huge mistake of comparing eras, hundred or more years apart……golf has evolved, the Open Championship went to 72 holes a LONG time ago, so don’t (LIV) in the past; The Masters will always have a strong field and will be a major long after you and I have departed this earth, so don’t throw out some ridiculous proposition like that; I now see that LIV is only promised funding for 3 more years and they’re hoping that the Greater Fool theory will provide a windfall by selling “Franchises” to unsuspecting investors, touting that they’ll one day be as valuable as Premier League franchise….to date, LIV has spent $2 billion with not one cent of a return and the CEO claims to be a great businessman……laughable, sir.
forky76
Tom, that is exactly the point of every post I have made about LIV on here the last 6 months. EVOLUTION. I am most certainly not living in the past. LIV is the future. All you pga tour fan boys that are stuck on 72 holes are reminiscing about the past, while golf evolves to 54 holes.
Younger generations today don’t have the patience for 12 hr days, 4 days a week of golf. Sports all around the world are looking for shorter formats. Most tennis tournaments are now 3 sets instead of 5, 20/20 cricket is booming, 54 holes might just be the answer for golf to survive the next 100 years. Who really watches golf on Thursday anyway..
Tom Edrington
LIV is the future until the Crown Prince wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and pulls the plug. And to add: Who watches LIV golf, not even six figures of eyeballs….Four rounds determine the best player, if majors were 54 holes Greg Norman, The Lamest Commissioner In All The Land, would own the career Grand Slam. Speculation is speculation…..comparing “cricket” to golf isn’t a good comparison. As for your claim younger people “don’t have the patience” — that is why most DO NOT make it to the PGA Tour, you have to be a grinder to get there…..If I showed your comment to Tiger Woods, he would laugh at it.
forky76
I’m not talking about the next generation of players, I’m talking about fans. Without fans, pro golf dies. The average pga tour fan is 68 yrs old. Most of you will be dead in 10 years. What is being done to get the attention of the next generation? Nothing. 12 hr days thurs to sunday will kill the game.
While you are talking to tiger, mention 26 of his 82 wins came in no cut exhibitions. Perhaps he can ask the pga tour to reduce his win count back to 56.
Tom Edrington
In that case, LIV is already dying….they’re having a tough time getting folks out, giving away free tickets, free beer, really LOUD heavy metal music…..they’re a DESPERATE group. Oh, by the way, ALL Tiger’s wins were 72 holes — touche, Forky! And, by the way, don’t worry about the PGA Tour NOT attracting younger fans — they draw about 700,000 for the week at the WM Phoenix Open and probably 70 percent are under 35.