Filming of ‘Full Swing’ season two, golf’s contribution to the Netflix docudrama genre, has hit the jackpot in Dubai with a plotline of Homeric dimension. Men of destiny on either side of a seismic conflict, facing off in a contest loaded with ill will and bad feeling.
An eagle at the last took Patrick Reed to six under par, level with Rory McIlroy, who finished birdie, eagle, birdie to post the same first-round score of 66. You might have thought the narrative vision of a Greek poet was at work bringing McIlroy and Reid into the same leaderboard space on this heaving battle ground that is the Hero Dubai Desert Classic.
Even before LIV Golf’s incursion into traditional tour territory, world No.1 McIlroy was just as easily cast as the good guy as Reed was the bad. That they find themselves on opposite sides of golf’s internecine dispute, McIlroy camped with the traditional forces, Reid at the vanguard of the Saudi takeover, is manna for any whose business is selling drama.
Reed, a golfer who has made a career of alienating his peers, maintains a solid grip on the fundamentals of s___housery, nicely demonstrated during the festive period when his legal representatives issued McIlroy with a subpoena understood to relate to the anti-trust case in which LIV Golf alleges the PGA Tour is trying to destroy it. That case, in which McIlroy, Tiger Woods and Davis Love III are alleged co-conspirators, is set to begin in January 2024.
Reed’s attempt at a convivial exchange on the Dubai range before the tournament was, therefore, rum at best, and ended with the now legendary storm in a tee cup. McIlroy joked that had he flicked a tee in Reed’s direction he would have been served with a law suit. Asked by a reporter if there might be a bridge to better relations between the pair McIlroy’s features contorted into a look pained disbelief.
As if the prospect of McIlroy and Reed squaring off at some point over the weekend were not exquisite enough in piled Saudi apologist Ian Poulter with the low score of the opening round, his 65 leaving him briefly with the solo lead before the second round of the weather disrupted tournament began. When the klaxon went to end the day’s play at 5.33pm Poulter was edged at the top of the leaderboard by another LIV rebel Richard Bland, who led by one.
Agent provocateur Poulter is one of 13 LIV players in legal dispute with the DP World Tour over the attempt by the former European Tour to ban them from its events. The case is set for arbitration in London early next month. It seems there is no possible outcome that might ease tensions between the parties. Either the LIV outcasts are ridden out of town, further deepening antipathies, or they are welcome to continue, utterly undermining the power and strategy of the DP World Tour and its senior strategic partner, the PGA Tour.
The escalation in feeling has been felt everywhere since golf resumed after the Christmas break. Sir Nick Faldo is the latest to weigh in with his view that LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman has shredded his legacy in his role driving the conflict. Moreover he dismissed the LIV Golf League as meaningless. “It’s a closed shop: 48 guys given loads of money,” he said. “They’re antagonistic, pitching events up against big events on the PGA Tour – and it’s the same here in Europe. It’s pretty embarrassing.”
McIlroy and Woods expressed the view that were rapprochement ever to be considered, Norman would have to go as a precondition. Upon which Norman heaped his standard scorn, accusing Woods of being reduced to a puppet of the PGA regime and pointing out his role has widened following the departure of three key LIV executives in recent months.
Faldo widened his assault by claiming LIV golfers are by definition out of Ryder Cup contention when the bi-annual contest with the United States resumes in Rome in September. “They’re done,” Faldo told Sky Sports. “It’s a rival tour. If you work for a company for 20 years and you then leave to go to a rival company, I can promise you your picture won’t still be on the wall. I’m sure they knew it was going to cost them.
“They were playing the maths game. They were getting a huge chunk of money up front, and they knew it was going to lose them sponsors, but they thought ‘I still win’.”
