By James Corrigan
The chief executive of Golf Saudi has made the astonishing pledge “to set up our own majors” if “the Big Four” ban LIV rebels from their historic events.
Majed Al Sorour is a businessman connected to the Saudi royal family who led the move to take professional golf to the kingdom and who, with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the $US600 billion ($951 billion) Public Investment Fund, has been instrumental in forming the breakaway league that has split the elite men’s game.
The pair have handed Greg Norman an open chequebook to launch a rival series to golf’s traditional tours, signing the likes of Open champion Cameron Smith, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka with investment topping $US2 billion.
With the might of PIF in its corner, LIV has, in four months, transformed the sport’s landscape, with chief executive Norman railing against the PGA Tour and DP World Tour for what he claims to be “monopolism” and running “a tyranny and closed shop”.
But with speculation intensifying over how officials at the US Masters, US Open, British Open and US PGA will react, Al Sorour issued a threat which is certain to gain exposure as well as ridicule.
“For now, the majors are siding with the Tour, and I don’t know why,” Al Sorour told The New Yorker. “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.”
Cameron Smith during his debut LIV Golf event last month.Credit:Getty
How a LIV “major” would work is anyone’s guess. Clearly, it could throw yet more money into the pot, although the 48-man LIV fields already play for $US25 million in “normal” events, with $US50 million up for grabs in next week’s team grand finale in Miami.
There have been rumours of a “Super LIV” event with a $US100 million purse and $US50 million going to the winners, but they remain unsubstantiated, with LIV insiders shrugging off the idea. But Al Sorour’s comments will inevitably lend credence to the gossip.
To many, his declaration will underline LIV’s disconnect with the game’s culture and traditions. In The New Yorker’s 6500-word expose, the claim is made that the Saudis tried to rent the Augusta clubhouse at the Masters so it could wine and dine top players, an audacious request that would obviously have been treated with contempt by organisers.
Fred Ridley, the Augusta chairman, has been named in a lawsuit brought in the US by LIV against the PGA Tour, claiming that “he personally instructed a number of participants in the 2022 Masters not to play in the LIV Golf Invitational Series”. It is still considered highly unlikely that Ridley will banish the rebels from next April’s tournament, especially as six champions are on the LIV roster.
LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman and managing director Majed Al Sorour at a tournament in Boston in September.Credit:AP
However, Martin Slumbers, the chief executive of the R&A, has said that the Open’s qualifying systems will be analysed after LIV’s emergence and the same applies to the US Open and US PGA.
Meanwhile, in his ever more desperate attempts to gain his series official world ranking status, Norman has slammed the Tour and majors for colluding to ensure LIV players tumble down the rankings, effectively shutting off one of the main qualification routes.
Al Sorour belittled reports that LIV offered $US700 million to sign Tiger Woods – “It’s not straight-out money, I never offered him that money. Not even close to that” – and insisted LIV has been turning away big names.
“We have many players who want to come in now,” he said. “But I need to protect my people.”
He also dismissed quotes from Mickelson, in which the six-time major winner called the Saudis “scary motherf——” to deal with and cited the country’s “horrid human rights record”.
“We don’t kill gays, I’ll just tell you that,” Al Sorour told the magazine.
Of course, Mickelson’s tirade was published just as LIV was attempting to launch in February and the ensuing backlash caused multiple players to show support to the PGA Tour, including Johnson, who later jumped ship anyway.
Al Sorour detailed how near they came to canning the operation, but in doing so his description of the lesser-ranked players – “the mediocres” – with whom LIV was forced to fill up the earlier fields might not go down well in the locker room.
“I called the boss [Al Rumayyan] and said, ‘Everyone’s walking away. Do you want to do it, or not?’ ” Al Sorour said, before setting out his plan. “Get the biggest mediocres, get the 10 that we have, get you and I, and let’s go play for $US25 million.”
The Telegraph, London
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