For a sport that prides itself on values like honesty, honor and integrity, golf sure seems over-populated with people whose word is worth about as much as a phlegm sundae on a sweltering day. ’Twas always thus, of course, no matter how energetically the PGA Tour marketed everyone as being of admirable character and charitable bearing. Thanks to Greg Norman’s ongoing abuse of the Clown Prince’s checkbook, at least now less work is required to identify the game’s most hollow charlatans. Just lob a dart at the LIV Golf line-up. And don’t feel the need to aim carefully.
Dishonesty and cowardice are two traits common to many players who have decamped to LIV Golf. They lie about their intent to join the Saudi-backed outfit and continually compound that by refusing to admit they did so for money, cowering behind codswallop about growing the game (they’re not) or setting their own schedule (they can’t). It’s an expanding roster of golfers who once insisted they’d never do exactly what they did whenever the Saudis found the inflection point in their spines, where cash trumps conscience.
LIV’s latest recruit is its least surprising: Henrik Stenson, the duration of whose Ryder Cup captaincy compares unfavorably to that of a Kardashian marriage. A few hours after Ryder Cup Europe announced his dismissal, Stenson released a statement expressing disappointment that jumping to the Saudis had cost him the job, perhaps forgetting that just four months ago he signed a contract that forbade him from doing just that.
“It is a shame to witness the significant uncertainty surrounding the Ryder Cup,” Stenson wrote, sounding like a pyromaniac dismayed at the damage caused by the fire he set.
But words, like contracts and character, are meaningless in the ranks of LIV Golf.
No sentient person in golf can be shocked that Stenson left for LIV, least of all those who selected him for the captaincy. Ryder Cup Europe coyly explained the decision to strip him of the captaincy as being “in light of decisions made by Henrik in relation to his personal circumstances.” Those circumstances don’t relate only to what tour Stenson wishes to compete on.
Most everyone on the DP World and PGA tours knows Stenson has more than once been the victim of large-scale embezzlement, so European Ryder Cup bosses must have understood that anyone offering him money would get a hearing. They would also have surmised that the dollar amount the Saudis were dangling would only…
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