In 1457, King James II banned golf in Scotland by an act of Parliament to force his male subjects to take up archery in case they were called to war. His grandson, James IV, lifted the ban 50 years later, and the centuries-old stick-and-ball game largely avoided politics and affairs of state ever since.
Now, as the PGA Tour and the rival Saudi-funded LIV Golf struggle to settle their legal issues and somehow reunite the sport, surprising political fissures are cracking their way across courses as issues and events ranging from 9/11 to MAGA trigger fan disputes in person or via social media.
A 2021 marriage between the Saudi Public Investment Fund and golf legend Greg Norman gave birth to LIV. The Saudis were eager to diversify their economic efforts from a singular focus on oil to tourism and international sports. Meanwhile, Norman long sought to build an alternative to the PGA Tour, resenting what he saw as the golf body’s tight purse strings and its tendency to treat the independent contractor players as restricted employees.
In a 2022 interview in Scotland’s the National during the lead-up to the 150th Open Championship, Norman said, “Our goals are to grow the game of golf and give more opportunities to more players to supplement their earnings and increase their market value. … I’m very proud of that, and I hope some kid that’s ranked 200 in the world wins the first tournament and claims the prize. It’ll change his life forever.”
Ignoring Norman’s declarations, traditional fans of the PGA Tour refused to look past the funding source that drove his efforts. They cited alleged Saudi involvement in 9/11, documented human rights abuses against women within the country, and the kingdom’s alleged assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi when criticizing LIV golfers as sellouts to a corrupt regime looking to “sports wash” its international image.
Former President Donald Trump added a final ingredient to golf’s political mess by hosting LIV events at his golf courses. After the PGA Tour discontinued using those properties, Trump’s partnership with LIV brought MAGA-centric fans into the LIV Golf tent. The overall result is a mix of business and political tensions splitting a sport once considered predominantly right leaning into conservative/LIV and moderate/PGA Tour camps.
Michael Williams, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and golf writer specializing in the intersection of golf and politics, believes the PGA Tour was looking to avoid publicity for the wrong reasons when it passed on Trump courses.
“You can politicize a ham sandwich, and you’re seeing that with the two tours in golf now,” Williams said. “I don’t think the PGA Tour was taking a stand against Trump. They just didn’t want an event at one of their events that might get out of control.”
Williams suggests PGA Tour supporters looking down their noses at LIV’s character need to face the reality that the Saudi-funded entity isn’t going away, even if its political character seems distasteful.
“The Saudis can wait out the PGA Tour,” he added. “They can say, ‘As long as you’re driving cars and buying gas, we can afford to pay guys millions to play three rounds of golf one week per month. That’s how much money we’ve got. What about you?’ As much as the human rights issues bother PGA Tour fans, they need to realize the endgame for the Saudis and the PIF is to get a stake in the PGA Tour.”
Potential partnership negotiations between the PGA Tour and LIV began on June 6, 2023, when PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan announced a deal that would change the face of the sport. With no finalized, detailed version of that agreement in place more than a year later, the two golf tours and their fans seem farther from peaceful coexistence than ever.
While golfers and fans bicker over the status and future of a divided sport, the larger world offers a serious prospective agreement between the State Department and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The two sides report an imminent security deal that would include a U.S. pledge to defend the kingdom in prospective conflicts, the sale of U.S. weapons to Riyadh, and U.S. use of Saudi territory for base deployment.
Even with that constructive political news, the tensions arising from Saudi involvement in LIV, and possible presence within a reimagined PGA Tour, remain a sensitive issue for all involved. As a result, multiple officials for the PGA Tour and LIV Golf all declined to comment.
Alex Miceli, veteran golf journalist and TV personality, insists golf fans’ accusations of Saudi human rights issues and sports washing emerged when the PGA Tour made them an issue early in LIV’s existence. He’s watching that animosity fade now into legitimate concerns about the future of the sport.
“I don’t think too many fans who once worried about sport washing now question that we need to find a way to make some coalition between the two groups,” Miceli said. “Politics aside, there’s no way the two sides have been talking for a year and are not at least closer to a deal. We just don’t know what will look like.”
Still, unable to put the Saudi-inspired political tensions aside entirely, Miceli reminds golf fans that the battle isn’t LIV Golf vs. the PGA Tour.
“The real battle is the Public Investment Fund vs. the PGA Tour,” he explained.
The questions of when and how the divided sport will heal continue to cause public clashes between golfers, media, and fans. Gary Player, nine-time major championship winner and World Golf Hall of Fame member, laments the tensions inside a game he sees as a positive force.
“I’ve said this before, but I played golf with several presidents, and the two I most enjoyed playing with were Donald Trump and Bill Clinton — very different politically,” Player said. “But we can learn to get along. These days, it seems so many people want to find reasons to fight, and that made its way into golf.”
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In the end, Player believes golf can overcome its deep divisions now to become a force for good in the world again.
“Golf produces more money for charity than all of the other sports combined,” Player said. “That just shows you what a force for good golf can be if we can get away from all of this conflict.”
John Lewinski, MFA, is a writer based in Milwaukee.
