Tour Talk Heats Up about Saudi-Backed Tour

Last updated on: February 20, 2022 at 9:46 pm by Kermit Zarley

Tour Talk Heats Up about Saudi-Backed Tour 2022-02-20T21:46:21-07:00 Kermit Zarley

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I’ve been blogging about the big talk by the pros on the PGA Tour right now. It’s a proposed pro golf tour financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund called Super Golf League that would be in serious competition with the PGA Tour. It would be a limited field of perhaps forty players who would play in a dozen tournaments or more, and the players would be guaranteed huge sums of money. Of course, the PGA Tour has never guaranteed any money to players who compete in its tournaments. To the PGA Tour, that is anathema. Yet there are pro golf tours and other individual pro golf tournaments or outings in the world that have guaranteed monies before. But they do not arise to the high caliber that U.S. PGA Tour has always occupied in the world since the beginning of pro golf tournaments, which began in the U.S. during the Depression, in the 1930s.

Major championship winner Rory McIlroy is still one of the top pro golfers in the world and a regular player on the PGA Tour. I have a lot of respect for Rory McIlroy for how he has handled himself through the years. Rory is also an Irishman, and we know that Irishmen often don’t keep matters to themselves. Neither does Rory; however, I think he has been pretty diplomatic when he has sounded off.

This afternoon, when Rory McIlroy finished his last round at the PGA Tour’s Genesis Invitational near Santa Monica, California, Rory spoke out strongly against Phil Mickelson’s recent comments about supporting the Super Golf League and heavy criticism of the PGA Tour. Phil had said it was guilty of “obnoxious greed.” He then claimed this proposed tour could pressure the PGA Tour to change. But I concluded that it Phil is the one who is wrong here and even mis-informed about how the PGA Tour operates.

So, here’s some of what McIlroy said just hours ago about these comments by Mickelson and thinking that Phil may be rethinking his position right now because he’s getting so much push back about it:

“I don’t want to kick someone while he’s down, obviously, but zi thought they [Phil’s comments] were naive, selfish, egotistical, ignorant. A lot of words to describe that interaction he had [referring to the private media interview with Phil about this]. It was just very surprising and disappointing, sad. I’m sure he’s sitting at home,” since Phil did not compete this week, “sort of rethinking his position and where he goes from here.”

McIlroy then turned his attention to the Saudi Arabian government. He is on record numerous times of highly criticizing it for many things including the murder of famed journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who at the time had citizenship in both Saudi Arabia and the U.S. and living in Washington, DC. Rory said of that government, “I knew the way these guys operated. It’s all been smoke and mirrors. They’ve created rumors and spread rumors.”

The Saudi government has a poor reputation in the world, and it is trying to change that partly by spending some big bucks to attract high profile sporting events. Rory McIlroy wants no part of trying to rehabilitate the Saudi reputation. Mickelson is trying to rehabilitate the PGA Tour, as he sees it, but so far there are no American pros who are taking his side except Bryson DeChambeau, who reportedly changed course today and now says he fully supports it and will stay here.

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