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Tag: Golf

  • At a LIV Golf Event, Thin Crowds and a Tense Start

    BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Standing over his ball on Friday, Phil Mickelson, the prized acquisition of the new, Saudi-backed LIV Golf series, lined up his opening tee shot in the breakaway circuit’s event at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster.

    Just as Mickelson, who reportedly received an upfront $200 million signing bonus to join the insurgent tour, was set to begin his swing, a fan 15 yards to his right yelled: “Do it for the Saudi royal family!”

    Mickelson backed away from the shot as a security official approached the fan and told him he would be removed from the grounds if there was another outburst.

    Appearing unnerved, Mickelson returned to his stance and finally struck the ball, which sailed 60 feet off-line and landed in a cavernous bunker. Stomping off the tee and muttering to his caddie, Mickelson would begin his day with a bogey.

    The dominant LIV Golf slogan, barked in radio advertisements and posted on mammoth billboards in neon letters around the Trump course is “Golf, but louder.”

    It’s not likely that the Mickelson episode, which occurred seconds into the first LIV Golf event held in the Northeast, is what the organizers had in mind.

    For most of Friday’s first round it was anything but loud. Yes, there was plenty of music played around the grounds, from powerful speakers near greens and tee boxes. But thunderous cheering, the typical soundtrack of most professional golf tournaments, was nonexistent.

    The crowds at the event, LIV Golf’s third tournament, were too sparse to hear any ovations wafting around the course. That may have been because it was a Friday rather than a weekend, but as an example, the largest first-tee crowd of the day was unquestionably for Mickelson, and it was about 350 people.

    And Mickelson was hitting next to a large clubhouse balcony and patio. When he reached his first green, there were exactly 43 people waiting for him. While he played the 18th hole, a large luxury box overlooking the green was empty. Several thousand spectators were spaced around the course, but nowhere near the roughly 20,000 that might attend an average PGA Tour event. LIV Golf officials did not announce an attendance figure.

    As the day wore on, certain greens were partially enveloped by fans standing two deep, but that was a rarity. For many attendees, however, this was not necessarily a bad thing.

    Denny McCarthy, 29, of Kearny, N.J., was delighted with his unobstructed view of the 18th green. He planned to stay in the same spot for most of the day and watch each of the 18 groups of three players as they played the hole.

    “There’s a beer stand behind me and the line’s not long either,” McCarthy said.

    There were other noticeable ways in which the atmosphere was different than one at a PGA Tour event. For one, the players appeared much more relaxed. In interviews, LIV Golf players have talked about how the new circuit has worked to foster a collective spirit with extravagant pretournament parties at nightclubs and abundant reimbursement of travel expenses for players’ families and caddies.

    Moreover, because of the controversies swirling around the circuit — including its financing by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, and the disquiet that it will forever splinter a revered golf ecosystem — the LIV golfers have felt ostracized. That has bred an us-against-them mentality that was evident on Friday. As the players walked the fairways, there was much more casual conversation among their groups than is customary at a PGA Tour event.

    The team competition element may be a factor. At each LIV event, 12 four-man teams play for a prize of $3 million that the winner splits evenly, supplementing the golfers’ individual earnings.

    “It feels very similar to playing college golf,” said Sam Horsfield, who, at 25, is one of the youngest players in the field. “You’re out there grinding on every shot to try and do well for the boys.”

    But in the end, there is an overriding reason that the LIV golfers may feel more at ease, and more collaborative: Each player, in a sense, is guaranteed to be a winner. Unlike PGA Tour events, which send half the field home without a dollar, LIV Golf events have guaranteed payments. Even the last-place finisher will receive $120,000 for his three days of competition.

    Those payouts have been made possible by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which has led critics to accuse the players of selling out to a country that is trying to paper over its poor human rights record. On Friday, a group of family members of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks protested near the course, asserting that Saudi officials had supported the terrorists.

    But on the course, some fans, especially younger ones, fed off the camaraderie that they observed among the players.

    “I like what they’re doing on social media, even seeing them enjoy the social events leading up to events,” said Jon Monteiro, 30, who traveled from his home in Reading, Pa., to the tournament on Friday. “The players are having more fun, and if they’re having fun I want to go and share in that atmosphere.”

    Standing next to Monteiro was his friend Alex Kelln, 30, who lives in Rumson, N.J. Speaking of past PGA Tour events he had attended, Kelln said the tour had a somewhat unwelcoming stigma, which he described as, “You stand there and there are quiet signs.”

    Monteiro interjected: “When we play golf there’s a speaker with music playing, and I feel like that’s how we’ve grown up playing golf.”

    Neither Monteiro nor Kelln worry about men’s professional golf being fractured by the showdown between the tours.

    “It’s healthy competition that ultimately will make them both better,” Kelln said.

    As Monteiro and Kelln spoke, it was 90 minutes before the first shots of the day, before Mickelson’s encounter with a heckler. Before the crowds were thin and scant at many holes.

    Monteiro conceded it was early in the LIV Golf experiment. He smiled and said, “We’ll see.”

  • 9/11 Families Protest at Saudi-Backed LIV Golf Tournament

    BEDMINSTER, N.J. — A somber and tearful group of protesters stood between two American flags behind a public library, in stark contrast to the festivities at a golf tournament three miles down the road. They made their statements and promoted their cause, but declined to take the fight to the gates of Trump National Golf Club Bedminster.

    “We are pleased that people are refocusing attention on this issue,” said Jay Winuk, one of the protest’s organizers. “There is no reason to go over to the scene where yet another atrocity is taking place.”

    The group, a band of family members of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, spoke vehemently against the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tournament being held this weekend at the club owned by a former president, Donald J. Trump.

    The group, 9/11 Justice, seeks to bring Saudi Arabian government officials, whom they assert supported the terrorists, to judgment. They are infuriated that Trump once agreed that the Saudi government was responsible, but has changed his tune, they said, to cash in on Saudi efforts to sanitize the nation’s global image through sports.

    “How much money does it take to turn your back on your country, on the American people?” said Juliette Scauso, who was 4 years old when her father, the firefighter Dennis Scauso, perished in the attacks.

    For days, the LIV golfers and Trump have defended their decisions to align with the breakaway tour and accept millions of dollars from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which is overseen by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Critics of the tour say it is another example of the Saudis “sportswashing” atrocities attributed to them — supporting the 9/11 terrorists, killing the journalist Jamal Khashoggi and oppressing women and members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

    Trump, who as a presidential candidate in 2016 blamed the Saudis for the 9/11 attacks, said on Thursday that “nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11, unfortunately.”

    On Friday, the protesters had their chance to respond to both Trump and to the golfers. Many accused the golfers of cowardice for proclaiming sympathy with their cause while still accepting LIV Golf’s money.

    “You are taking a stand that you agree with the actions of Saudi Arabia or, just as bad, that you are so incredibly greedy and callous that you really don’t care about these atrocities,” Scauso said.

    The organizers came to the protest armed with copies of declassified F.B.I. documents, which they say establish a clear connection between 12 Saudi government officials and the terrorists in the months leading up to the attacks.

    “It’s simple,” said Tim Frolich, who was in the South Tower on 9/11. “The Saudis did it. They plotted it, they funded it, and now they are trying to distract every one of those things with a golf tournament 50 miles away from ground zero. It’s deplorable.”

    The group urged golf fans to boycott LIV Golf and asked golfers and anyone doing business with the Saudis, including broadcasters, to reconsider. On Friday morning, at a nearby Marriott serving as headquarters for the tour on its Bedminster stop, members of the group approached David Feherty, the former CBS and NBC golf analyst who has defected to join the tour even though it has no American broadcast television contract yet.

    Brett Eagleson, the president of 9/11 Justice, asked Feherty if he would listen and perhaps speak to the golfers about the choices they are making.

    “He was actually really receptive,” Eagleson said. “He was really open to working with us and having a partnership with us, as opposed to being combative. I’m hopeful.”

    But Eagleson was far less conciliatory about Trump, who he said was more culpable than the golfers, because, as the former commander in chief, he should know better. Eagleson was part of a group that met with Trump at the White House on Sept. 11, 2019. They say Trump urged them to continue their work, which they did with vigor on Friday.

    Eagleson said Trump’s claim that “nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11” outraged the family members of victims beyond their already simmering anger.

    “Our loved ones are the heroes,” he said, “and the golfers and the former president are cowards.”

    As the protesters spoke, several passing cars honked horns in support, but a few drivers yelled out in support of Trump and one yelled at the family members to go home.

    Winuk, whose brother, Glenn Winuk, a volunteer firefighter, died in the attacks, called the Saudi funds “blood money” and warned that anyone taking it would carry the “stench” of it forever.

    “LIV Golf?” he said. “For me and so many more of us, it’s more like death golf.”

    Several members of the group, including former Trump supporters, took turns at the lectern lambasting the Saudis, the golfers and the former president. When asked what else the group had planned, Eagleson broke down while explaining the exhaustion he and others in the organization felt.

    “I’m tired of fighting,” he said through the tears.

  • LIV Golf Comes to Bedminster, and Trump Plays Host, and 18 Holes

    BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Walking alongside Donald Trump as he plays golf is a lot like watching his presidency: He tells you how well he’s doing, mistakes are disregarded and the one constant is an endless stream of group photos with Trump blithely flashing a toothy grin and a thumbs up.

    It was as entertaining, revealing and inexplicable as it sounds.

    On Thursday, Trump was a contestant in the pro-am tournament on the eve of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf event he is hosting this weekend at the lavish golf course he built in northwestern New Jersey. The intent of the outing was to team some celebrities and everyday golfers with the professionals, and Trump was, naturally, in the featured first grouping of the day.

    While Trump played a plethora of golf rounds as president, other than his guests, few were able to witness his golf game during his four years in the White House. The news media was kept at a removed distance. But on Thursday, nearly 50 media members credentialed for the tournament — as well as some event officials — would accompany Trump on foot for 18 holes.

    Trump’s golfing party, which included security, drove in a dozen golf carts, generally two to a cart. But there was one cart predominantly occupied by a single person, and it was the only ex-president on the property at the wheel.

    For the pro-am, Trump was grouped with two of the best players to defect to the rival LIV Golf circuit from the PGA Tour: Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau, who have won three major championships between them.

    About 15 minutes late for his 10 a.m. tee time, Trump stepped onto the first tee dressed in a white shirt and black pants and sweating profusely under his signature MAGA hat. He looked pale. To be fair, at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, which has little shade, no one walking the grounds on a humid day with temperatures in the mid-90s was comfortable.

    Stepping onto the tee, Trump quickly became the focal point of more than a handful of photos. He would organize the lineup of the people in the picture, often giving instructions on who should stand where, like a concierge of photo ops.

    Finally, it was time to start the round, and Trump’s opening drive bounded into the left rough. But it was a respectable distance from the tee for a 76-year-old, roughly 220 yards.

    The format for the pro-am was that each group would select the best tee shot and then play their second shots from that spot. For the rest of the hole, they were expected to play their own ball, wherever it came to rest. It often made it impossible to assign exact scores for any player, but on the par-4 first hole, Trump needed five strokes to get his ball in the hole for a bogey.

    But on the second hole, a telling rhythm for the day’s journey was set by Trump, and it defied the polite golf protocol of waiting your turn.

    After hitting his second shot to the green, Trump ignored other players in his group who had yet to hit and jumped into his cart and roared ahead. He parked within a few feet of the putting surface (also a no-no since it can damage the delicate short grass in that area). Standing in the fairway half a hole behind Trump, Johnson yelled ahead since he had yet to play his second shot and could have beaned the former president near the green.

    Trump put his cart in reverse and moved out of range. But his barge-ahead style of play continued for much of the round. Often, Trump had putted out on a hole while his playing companions were still 125 yards away in the fairway.

    A few holes later, Trump stopped to talk with a gaggle of reporters. He was asked how much he could earn by hosting the LIV Golf tournament at his course.

    “I don’t do it for that. I do it because I think it’s good for golf,” he said.

    Trump smiled.

    “The important thing is that we’re all playing well,” he said.

    By that point, Trump had registered, at best, one par. He had also not finished a hole after his blast from a bunker had failed to reach the green and was nestled in some nasty rough. Instead, he had his caddie pick up the ball and march to the next tee. On another hole, when a birdie putt rolled nearly six feet past the hole, he casually scooped the ball up to end the hole, apparently conceding himself a par. Try that this weekend in your match with your usual foursome. Or any foursome.

    At other times, a Trump mis-hit would simply be ignored. As if understanding the drill, his caddie would simply retrieve the golf ball from the sand or deep rough and walk forward.

    Trump, however, did exhibit a sunny countenance throughout. That included a scene that he could not have expected. As he stepped onto the tee of a par-3, 176-yard hole over a large pond, he was approached by three comedians who, in concert with LIV Golf, were conducting what they called the “Back Off Challenge” during the pro-am. The idea was that the comedians, whose project is called Country Club Adjacent, would try to insult, mock or harass each golfer on the tee to see if they would back off from the shot before hitting it. The scenes were being videotaped for the group’s various social media networks.

    Trump agreed to play along.

    As he stood over the ball, one of the comedians, Blake Webber, said: “What would your following say if you hit this one left?”

    Said Jake Adams: “You built a golf course just to miss the green?”

    And finally, from Griff Pippin: “Your swing looks broken. Was it made in China?”

    Trump did not flinch. But he did slice his shot into the water.

    Then, Trump posed with the comedians for a group picture. He paused a beat and smiled while simultaneously raising his right thumb.

  • Trump Criticizes PGA Tour and Praises Saudis for Backing LIV Golf

    BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Donald J. Trump praised the Saudi Arabian backers of a controversial new golf tournament Thursday, calling them his friends, while criticizing the traditional PGA Tour.

    The former president, wearing a white golf shirt and his signature red baseball cap emblazoned with his familiar campaign slogan, spoke briefly before teeing off in the pro-am segment of the LIV Golf event at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., which he owns.

    “I’ve known these people for a long time in Saudi Arabia and they have been friends of mine for a long time,” Trump said after taking practice swings on the driving range. “They’ve invested in many American companies. They own big percentages of many, many American companies and frankly, what they are doing for golf is so great, what they are doing for the players is so great. The salaries are going to go way up.”

    The LIV Golf series is bankrolled by the sovereign wealth fund, which is overseen by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In 2018, during Trump‘s presidency, American intelligence officials concluded that Prince Mohammed had authorized the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and journalist with the Washington Post. Trump, who criticized the Saudis on the campaign trail before his election in 2016, resisted their conclusions.

    The Bedminster club had previously been scheduled to host the P.G.A. Championship in 2022, but the P.G.A. of America moved it to Oklahoma after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, saying that holding it at Bedminster would be “detrimental to the P.G.A. of America brand.” (The P.G.A. of America, which is separate from the PGA Tour, later reached a settlement with the Trump Organization.) Since then, Trump has sided with the upstart golf tour.

    It is not known how much LIV Golf organizers paid Trump for the use of his club for the 54-hole tournament, the tour’s third event. But players who have defected to the lucrative tour have been guaranteed large sums and have resigned or been suspended from the PGA Tour for playing in it. As of now, LIV golfers can still play in the four major tournaments, which are not run by the PGA Tour, although that could change in the future.

    “The PGA was not loved by a lot of the players, as you know, for a long time,” Trump said. “Now they have an alternative and nobody ever would have known it was going to be a gold rush, like this. I think nobody ever knew that they were going to be paying signing bonuses. The prize money was going to be much higher, you know, four, five, six times higher. So, instead of a million dollars you win five or seven or eight. A lot of money and it’s even going up. But the PGA Tour hasn’t acted well.”

    During a brief interview with a handful of reporters before he went to the practice putting green, Trump was asked about protests involving the families of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The protesters, who plan to stage a counter event on Friday at the same time the main tournament starts, believe, along with others, that the Saudi government backed the organizers of the attacks.

    “Well, nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11, unfortunately,” Trump said. “They should have. As to the maniacs that did that horrible thing to our city, to our country, to the world, so nobody’s really been there.”

    Trump was scheduled to play in Thursday’s event in a group that included professional golfers Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Governor of the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, and his son Eric Trump.

    “I’ll never feel like a long hitter with that group,” he said.

  • What Is LIV Golf? It Depends Whom You Ask.

    Bold new project or crass money grab? Even golf’s best players (and former President Donald Trump) disagree on the merits of the new Saudi-financed golf tour. But as it announces an expansion for 2023, here’s what you need to know.

  • Henrik Stenson Stripped of Ryder Cup Captaincy as LIV Golf Rift Widens

    Saudi Arabia’s contentious effort to buy its way into professional golf created a new flash point in the sport on Wednesday with the announcement that Europe’s team for next year’s Ryder Cup was dropping its captain, Henrik Stenson of Sweden, just ahead of his expected move to the new Saudi-financed LIV Golf series.

    Stenson, whose affiliation with LIV Golf was announced Wednesday afternoon, became the latest player lured by the riches being offered by the series, which has upended the once polite world of professional golf since hosting its first event earlier this summer.

    By guaranteeing players more money than they could earn in the biggest tours and tournaments that make up the traditional golf calendar, the LIV series has created an ugly fissure in the golf world. The fight has split golf into two camps: a group of traditionalists that includes some of the sport’s titans, including champions like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, and a growing band of rebels, a group that includes Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and, now, Stenson, who won his only major championship at the 2016 British Open.

    “In light of decisions made by Henrik in relation to his personal circumstances, it has become clear that he will not be able to fulfill certain contractual obligations to Ryder Cup Europe that he had committed to prior to his announcement as Captain on Tuesday March 15, 2022, and it is therefore not possible for him to continue in the role of Captain,” Europe’s Ryder Cup team said in a statement. The announcement did not specifically reference Stenson’s expected defection to LIV.

    The Ryder Cup, a wildly popular event that pits a team of United States players against a European squad, is set to be played at the Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome next September. European officials said Stenson’s ouster would take place “with immediate effect,” and that they would name a new captain soon.

    In a statement announcing he had joined LIV, Stenson said he had made arrangements with the series that would allow him to continue as Ryder Cup captain and disagreed with his removal.

    “It goes without saying that I remain on hand to support Ryder Cup Europe in any way I can and very much hope the opportunity to represent Team Europe in some capacity will come my way again at some point in the future,” he wrote.

    The LIV Golf series has started fires across the golfing spectrum, with the main tours in the United States and Europe barring any players who compete in LIV events. That dispute has sparked a legal fight in the United States, where the Justice Department earlier this month announced that it was investigating the PGA Tour for anticompetitive behavior in its dealings with the upstart competition.

    While its events have created sparks within golf for upending the traditions and strictures of how the game is played — LIV tournaments feature no cuts, millions of dollars in guaranteed prize money and are played over 54 holes rather than the usual 72 — the series also has become a lightning rod for human rights campaigners who accuse Saudi Arabia of using sports to launder its reputation.

    Earlier this week, ​​relatives of people killed on Sept. 11, 2001, wrote to former President Donald J. Trump, urging him to cancel an event set to be held later this month at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey. The event is one of two set to be played at Trump-owned courses; the LIV Golf series finale in October is scheduled for Trump National Doral in Florida.

    “We simply cannot understand how you could agree to accept money from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s golf league to host their tournament at your golf course, and to do so in the shadows of ground zero in New Jersey, which lost over 700 residents during the attacks,” the family members wrote in their letter, which noted that even Trump had in the past blamed Saudi Arabia for the 9/11 attacks.

    “It is incomprehensible to us that a former president of the United States would cast our loved ones aside for personal financial gain,” the letter to Trump continued. “We hope you will reconsider your business relationship with the Saudi golf league and will agree to meet with us.”

    Brett Eagleson, the president of 9/11 Justice, the group that sent the letter, said Sunday that he had not received a response.

    Trump, though, weighed in on the LIV Golf feud on his social media site, Truth Social, on Tuesday. In a brief post, he criticized the PGA Tour and told players to “take the money now.”

    “All of those golfers that remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA, in all of its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes,” Trump wrote. He said a merger between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour was “inevitable.”

    “If you don’t take the money now,” Trump wrote, “you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were.”

    The LIV circuit, backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, has billions of dollars at its disposal. It already has used its wealth to poach star names with eye-watering signing on fees. Mickelson, a six-time major winner, reportedly received $200 million to join, and DeChambeau recently suggested on a podcast that his deal with the series was worth more than $125 million. The series is being led by the Australian Greg Norman, whose central role in luring talent has led him to becoming a pariah figure within the golf establishment. He was barred from this year’s edition of the British Open, for example, despite being a past winner of the tournament.