On the finish of an already turbulent week for skilled golf, one which comes on the finish of a yr of unprecedented upheaval, the sport’s worst-kept secret has been confirmed.
As his fashionable jacket and cap combo recommended, and as a weird interview on Fox Information confirmed, Spanish famous person Jon Rahm has joined LIV Golf.
Experiences fluctuate on how a lot cash Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund (PIF) is paying him, or precisely how that cash shall be distributed, however it’s protected to say it’s a resolution that may earn Rahm lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.
Tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}. And but, it’d as effectively be chump change for LIV and the PIF.
The reality is that cash is not simply being spent on Rahm, at present the third-best golfer on this planet, the present Masters champion with the very best years of his profession nonetheless forward of him.
These hundreds of thousands are going to one thing much more precious for the PIF — energy. Leverage. The whip hand in a negotiation that has rumbled alongside within the background for months, however which has simply taken a major flip within the favour of LIV and its Saudi benefactors.
Solid your thoughts again to June 6, a date that eternally modified the sport in methods we could not correctly foresee on the time.
It was on that day that information broke of a supposed PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger, one which on face worth was going to deliver an finish to this civil battle between the sport’s conventional powerbroker and the rich upstart.
Even then although, it did not take a lot digging to understand there was extra to that deal than met the attention. In reality the deal was for the PIF to put money into the PGA Tour, successfully shopping for themselves a seat on the prime desk of worldwide golf.
That deal, which was struck by the PGA Tour hierarchy behind the backs of the gamers that tour represents, instantly met vital roadblocks.
The US Division of Justice (DOJ) swiftly opened investigations to find out if the deal was a violation of anti-trust legal guidelines, principally in search of to find out if the merger of those two rival industries was eliminating competitors among the many trade.
It’s nonetheless unknown what is going to come of that. However what we do know is that within the meantime, the PGA Tour was searching for cash elsewhere.
Negotiations have been ongoing between the Tour and a variety of non-public fairness teams — or because the assertion launched by the PGA Tour’s participant administrators simply minutes earlier than Rahm’s announcement known as them, “multi-decade oriented, strategic companions” — however nothing has been agreed upon so far.
All of it provides as much as a large number.
The PGA Tour is attempting to have a guess every means whereas it waits for a DOJ verdict, all of the whereas ostensibly attempting to hash out a take care of the PIF earlier than the self-imposed December 31 deadline.
Gamers on the PGA Tour are on the verge of mutiny. The highest gamers are furious that the PIF deal was struck with out their information, and the lower-ranked gamers consider efforts by the Tour to appease these stars have reduce them out of the dialog and left them excessive and dry.
And now this. Essentially the most vital defection on this LIV-PGA battle, with apologies to Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith.
Rahm’s resolution to signal with LIV reveals simply how weak the PGA Tour is on this second. That extra gamers will observe the Spaniard could be very doubtless and nearly possible.
No matter it was the PIF needed from the PGA Tour that was holding up negotiations — perhaps securing the way forward for LIV, perhaps bringing occasions to Saudi Arabia, who is aware of — one would think about it’s now going to get it.
The PGA Tour is out of choices. Jay Monahan and co have been overwhelmed by the load of Saudi Arabian cash, but additionally by their very own poor resolution making, surprising communication and full lack of ability to handle the various key stakeholders concerned on this complete state of affairs.
All of which solutions the query of why the PIF would throw cash at Rahm. However why would Rahm, at now of all junctures, take that cash?
Perhaps Rahm, a considerate and engaged skilled who will know all the above in addition to anybody, is aware of what is likely to be coming subsequent.
If a deal does get finished, and the sport does get unified in some form or type, what is going to actually change for Rahm’s profession?
The place he might discover himself in a number of months — enjoying majors and getting access to PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV occasions — might be the very same one he would have been in if he had made the change or not.
In that sense, it is free cash. A completely insane quantity of free cash.
Or perhaps, regardless of his many public feedback over the past two years on the contrary, he actually is happy by the 54-hole, team-golf LIV format and desires to “develop the sport” or no matter different soundbites will emerge over the subsequent 24 hours.
Regardless, apart from a slight and possibly transient hit to his public repute, this can be a no-brainer for Rahm. It is also a no brainer for LIV Golf and the PIF, as they’ve simply known as their checkmate.
It is a main loss for the PGA Tour, which is backed right into a nook and is being overwhelmed by the various battles it’s at present shedding.
And, frankly, it is a loss for golf followers who’re already totally exhausted from watching one of many world’s oldest and most history-rich sports activities proceed to be torn asunder by politics and greed and cash, cash, cash.
Clearly this story is not over but. There are offers to be finished, investigations to be accomplished, PR wars to be waged.
However when the day comes that skilled golf lastly settles into its new regular, irrespective of how that appears, we are going to look again at this present day as perhaps essentially the most vital of all.
