The fine folk at Global Golf Post saw fit to publish this column of mine in June 2023, when the PGA Tour’s partnership/merger with the Saudi Public Investment Fund took everyone by surprise. It remains highly relevant, and will for some time. Find the published version here … HP, MM
News of the PGA Tour/LIV merger may feel as though it broke, or was brokered, very much out of the blue. But the power, money and tastes driving golf’s evolution have continually migrated westward. The emerging primacy of Saudi influence, as of Tuesday night, May 6, is merely the next link in a recurringly fascinating, often jarring historical chain.
In 1880, for example, it would have seemed absurd and laughable to Victorian Brits that their game would, in just 40 years’ time, grow to be so dominated by America, Americans, their wealth and their so obviously colonial tastes. But that’s exactly what happened, and while this dynamic first applied to tournament play — all but one of golf’s major championships were developed and eventually hosted here — it was quickly extended to formats of play (medal, not match), course design (parkland, not links) and ball size, among other things.
Starting in the 1990s, the money and predilections that fuel golf’s ceaseless evolution began to veer still further west, from North America to Asia. Another 20 years from now, it’s entirely possible, even plausible, that the game’s center of gravity will shift accordingly, as it once shifted from the U.K. to the U.S. This merger of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) and PGA Tour is only the latest evidence of Asia’s rise. The women’s game, it could be argued, is already centered in East Asia — home to most of the game’s finest competitors, its most lucrative corporate sponsorships, and tournament purses.
Had someone advanced this eventual state of affairs to American golf observers in 1980, they too would have considered it laughable and absurd.
Indeed, if someone had suggested it Monday, May 5, 2023, the scenario would been dismissed as both fanciful and heretical. But here we are, poised at the precipice of another massive shift to the West.
There remains a sizeable cautionary twist for all of us to consider, here in North America at least. British, then American, then Asian hegemonies — in the golfing context — were all fueled, at first, by the champion golfers they produced, then by the sheer number of casual-and-largely-well-heeled golfers who played the game. They bought equipment, read the golf magazines and websites, then traveled the region/world playing the game. Eventually corporate decision-makers recognized televised tournament golf specifically as a means to reach these wealthy consumers.
Neither Saudi culture specifically, nor the Arab world writ larger, has yet produced these dominant players, nor any trace of any sizeable golfing zeitgeist. Anywhere. Their influence in the sport has proved almost exclusively bought and paid for. What’s more, it would take no more than the wave of Mohammed bin Salman’s hand, or the drawing of his final breath, to wipe it all away — all the golf ventures, his country’s courtship of international soccer stars and events, its substantial Formula 1 investments, etc.
Our collective shock this week is largely the result of our sudden realization that great change is upon us. Even if we recognize the broader historical perspective, golf’s latest westward expansion can’t help but engender further uncertainty. If that precarity doesn’t give us pause — if it doesn’t give pause to advertisers and investors in this new combined venture — it should.