By Steve Keating
MIAMI (Reuters) – LIV Golf’s tumultuous inaugural season concludes this week at Trump National Doral Golf Club where the eye-popping prize money and the former-president may well be the main attraction.
Controversy has hung over the Saudi-backed venture from the very start and will follow the series to Sunday’s final round where the team champions will be crowned and a whopping $50 million paid out.
But keeping the focus on their marquee signings like former world number one Dustin Johnson and British Open champion Cameron Smith will again prove a challenge.
While LIV’s feud with the PGA Tour continues to simmer, 9/11 Justice, an advocacy group comprised of family members and survivors of the attacks on the Twin Towers, plan to spoil the year-end extravaganza with a blunt television commercial on CNN protesting the Saudi-funded LIV Golf tournament.
The 9/11 community has long contended that Saudi government officials supported the hijackers in the attacks on the Twin Towers and labelled LIV golfers of being little more than well paid mercenaries in a “sportwashing” scheme by a nation trying to improve its reputation in the face of criticism over its human rights record.
Even at the season finale there was no escaping the controversy as a light-hearted, trash-talking press conference on Wednesday turned serious with questions over criticism from the PGA Tour’s most vocal backer Rory McIlroy, who said in a Guardian interview that for “the first time in my life that I have felt betrayal, in a way”.
Six-time major winner Phil Mickelson would not be drawn into a squabble with the world number one. He instead praised the Northern Irishman on his great season while warning critics they had better get used to having LIV Golf around because it is not going away.
“I’m just looking at LIV Golf and where we are today to where we were six, seven months ago and people were saying this is dead in the water and here we are today,” said Mickelson. “A force in the game that is not going away.”
LIV Golf will grow from eight to 14 events next season with Trump resorts, which hosted two of the eight stops this year, once again expected to figure prominently.
Trump, who is scheduled to play in Thursday’s Pro Am, has been a backer of the breakaway series with the PGA of America a target of his wrath after it pulled the 2022 PGA Championship from his Bedminster property in New Jersey following the Jan. 6 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“I think LIV has been a great thing for Saudi Arabia, for the image of Saudi Arabia,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal.
Play gets underway on the ‘Blue Monster’ on Friday with 12 four-man teams chasing a $16 million first-place prize.
The format and teams, such as the 4 Aces, Iron Heads and Cleeks may be unknown but the captains will be familiar major winners like Johnson, Mickelson, Smith, Brooks Koepka, Sergio Garcia and Bryson DeChambeau.
“We’ve never had a team event like this in professional golf,” said Mickelson.
“This is a unique thing happening in professional golf, and it’s pretty exciting, and to be on a historic course that held a (PGA) Tour event for longer than I think just about any other event or was in the top 3 or 4.
“It’s pretty special to have this monumental event take place on this site, too.”
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Miami, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
