Sports is a form of entertainment, relaxation and escapism. The same can be said for movies, television, theatre, live music and on and on. For most people, there is a certain drudgery to their lives and work. Yet following the Giants or rooting for Tiger Woods on Masters’ Sunday or not knowing whether to root against the Patriots versus wanting a team from Los Angeles to win the Super Bowl is a fun diversion when compared to paying the bills, shopping for groceries or hoping that your aging roof doesn’t leak after the next storm.
Of course, regardless of whether the New Orleans Saints really should be in the Super Bowl or Barry Bonds deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, sports can get far removed from being a haven of entertainment, relaxation and escapism. Sometimes the issues are labor law and on occasion the results have been devastating to the initiator such as Curt Flood, free agency and the reserve clause. While this is an everyday part of sports during our time, it was a career-ruining endeavor for the three-time all-star and two-time World Series champion. More recently, former 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick has attempted to bring political activism to the NFL with the personal result being similar to Flood’s experience with a major league entity.
While all major sports have had issues in the past with strikes, politics, labor law and the like, golf has largely been able to avoid the fray. Golfers are independent contractors, so they don’t have to deal with issues such as long-term contracts or the chance of being traded to Milwaukee. Because of the country club nature of the sport, golfers normally don’t have radical opinions or thoughts. Yet there have been a few political conflicts that were sometimes ignored and sometimes dealt with.
For the first 60 years of the 20th century, the PGA of America had a “Caucasians-only” clause in its bylaws. Because the PGA of America ran the tour prior to the formation of the PGA Tour in the early 1970s, talented golfers of color such as Ted Rhodes and Charlie Sifford found themselves on the outside looking in. On occasion, an event like the Los Angeles Open would allow talented golfers into the field through the qualifying process, but a third-place finish in the L.A. Open wouldn’t get you a spot in the Greater Greensboro Open. Once he got on tour, Sifford’s win at the Greater Hartford Open in 1967 and the L.A. Open in 1969 still didn’t get him a Masters invite. There was very little input or opinion from the stars of the game regarding the Caucasians-only clause or the racist policies of the members of the Augusta National Golf Club. It took the California attorney general to change that exclusivity clause in 1961. The folks who ran the Masters held out even longer and avoided inviting black golfers to their tournament, regardless of the criticism. Lee Elder ultimately got an invite in 1975.
Fast-forward to 2019 and the game of golf has grown internationally to the extent that the game’s top players will willingly go to Asia, Africa and Australia in the quest of millions in prize money coupled with hundreds of thousands and more in appearance fees. There are bound to be more political and governmental dynamics as the game expands to places like Malaysia, China, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The European PGA Tour and some of the game’s top professionals of this era are stepping into a political fray this weekend that extends far outside the gallery ropes. The American PGA Tour is playing in Phoenix at the Waste Management Open and the purse is $7.1 million. Meanwhile the European Tour remains in the Middle East and this week’s tournament has a total purse of $3.5 million, basically half of what Phoenix is offering. Yet the European Tour field includes the likes of world No. 1 and last week’s winner at Torrey Pines, Justin Rose. He is teeing it up alongside three-time major champion Brooks Koepka, former U.S. Open champ Dustin Johnson, last week’s Euro Tour winner in Dubai, Bryson DeChambeau, the last two Masters champions, Sergio Garcia and Patrick Reed, world class golfers Henrik Stenson, Ian Poulter, Ernie Els and Lee Westwood, as well as Europe’s Ryder Cup captain, Thomas Bjorn.
Those big-name golfers are playing overseas this weekend because they are receiving appearance money, something that is allowed on the European Tour and is forbidden here in America. Rumor has it that Tiger Woods was offered a whopping $3 million appearance fee, but turned it down because of the travel distance and his back. Rose is reported to receive $1.5 million and the same figure has been thrown around with regard to Koepka and Johnson.
Of course, there is nothing new about world class golfers receiving appearance money, a policy that has been in practice since the late 1970s and Seve Ballesteros. Yet the political issue this week on the European Tour is that they are hosting a new event at Royal Greens Golf and Country Club. The tournament is called the Saudi International. This is Saudi Arabia’s first big foray into the world of professional golf.
Of course, in light of Saudi Arabia’s deceptive fumbling of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi coupled with its history of despotic rule coupled with the secondary status of women, we can question whether participation in the Saudi International is an endorsement of the Kingdom’s authoritarian regime. Of course, most golfers spend more time reading greens than they do the newspaper, and so the responses of some of this week’s participants are simplistically to the point.
Winner of two major championships in 2018, Brooks Koepka was quoted as saying, “People are always going to have different views on politics wherever you go. All of these places have a bit of conflict if you want to get into it. I’m not going to get into it. It’s going to be an unbelievable field of golf there. Hopefully, you can spread some good will through golf when you’re there.” Dustin Johnson added, “I’m not a politician. I play golf.”
Perhaps DJ is right. After all, I like the way he pounds a golf ball and I really don’t care about his thoughts on the conflict in Syria or the government shutdown or the Mueller Report. And maybe, just maybe, the top professionals of the game merely want to expand their horizons. After all, why go to visit Phoenix when you can instead visit all that Saudi Arabia has to offer? I’ve heard that it’s all about entertainment, relaxation and escapism.
