The Masters Prove Villains Are Good For Golf (Insert Evil Laugh Here).
Dear LIVers,
Thank you! Thank you for making my Masters weekend even more awesome than usual!
I have always tuned in to golf's majors, no matter what, because I love golf. Heck, I'd watch a bunch of robots with the same swing compete among the azaleas at Augusta... and I used to kind of feel like that's what I was watching for the last 15 years — Post-Peak Tiger — until your tour came around.
Now, it's even more fun for me and any golf fan with a brain, soul, and conscience to watch The Masters. Because, now, we actually have someone to clearly root for:
Anyone but any of you!
On Sunday, it was Jon Rahm — who I would have otherwise been mildly happy to see win, at best — pulverizing one of LIV's poster boys, BROoks Koepka, the Miserable Bro of the Masters. How sweet it was!
Yes, if there is one redeemable thing about your LIV tour, it has drawn a line in the sand between good and evil. On one side, the filthy rich guys on the PGA Tour who get paid around $2 million for a winner's paycheck most weeks, and can attain generational wealth after just one mediocre season.
And your side — the filthy rich guys who shamelessly swim in far more money for far less effort.
Thank you all for making my skin crawl the way Freddy Krueger and Leatherface did when I was 10. Only, instead of wielding metal claws and chainsaws, you wielded gutless greed by selling out and taking that Saudi Arabian blood money.
After all, there are no thrillers without villains. And The Masters — like all sports and all plotlines in literature, theater, and cinema — was more compelling with villains.
Superman served no purpose without Lex Luthor. Austin Powers would be just a sad, annoying, middle-aged man without Dr. Evil. There would be no epic JAWS movies without... well, jaws. The jaws of Bruce, the Great White Shark.
And, fittingly, modern golf's Dr. Evil was nicknamed "The Great White Shark" when he played. That's Greg Norman, who always seemed slimy and evil, and for almost 30 years has plotted this global golf gong show. He's now the leading stooge for the corrupt Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who heads the $620 billion Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, where the LIV money comes from.
And what a stable Dr. Evil has in you LIVers.
Thank you, BROoks Koepka. Not for last week's temporary resurgence as a Mammoth at Majors, but for your hilariously hapless five-hour-long Sunday self-destruction, and caveman-like narration of it afterward. And for your heel turn, from what felt like a golfing superhero a few years ago, to the miserable meathead who doesn't even appear to even like golf. It's a heel turn that would make Hollywood Hulk Hogan proud.
Thank you, Patrick Reed. Not for your sublime final round climb up the leaderboard, but reminding me how easy it is to hate cheaters who have all the charm of the 10-year-old kid from A League of Their Own. You know, the "You're gonna lose" kid that Jimmy Dugan finally decked.
And thank you, Phony Phil Mickelson. Not for rekindling that famous, furious Sunday Phil charge and becoming the oldest runner-up in major championship history. But, instead, for doing your dance with the Saudi golf devil, which apparently has spooked you into a ghoulishly skinny, creepy-looking villain from the Terminator movies.
I was always on the fence about you. I had heard the nickname "Phony Phil" years ago. But I fell time and time again for the sappy story of your U.S. Open heartbreaks and swashbuckling charm, which included your appetite for betting big on and off the course.
Then came the insider trading scandal. I tuned that out when you won the PGA Championship at 50. It was just too awesome not to love. And I certainly gravitated even closer to your side when you reportedly said this to respected golf writer Alan Shipnuck, your biographer, about the Saudi Arabians who fund LIV:
"They're scary mother------s to get involved with. We know they killed (Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal) Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all this, why would I ever consider it?"
If only you stopped there and didn't answer your own question. But you did.
"Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates."
Ah, yes, I'm sure it had nothing to do with the reported $200 million in blood money you received before even teeing it up on the LIV.
Buy, hey, Phil, thanks for being greedy and hypocritical. It only makes rooting against you more fun!
Your net worth is $400 million, but why not grab $200 million more — a nice, upfront fee for less work.
LIV plays three 18-hole rounds in three days instead of the PGA Tour's four 18-hole rounds in four. While PGA Tour golfers must compete against roughly 130-155 other top players on the globe every week, LIV keeps its field at 48. Less competition.
The PGA Tour cuts its field in half after two rounds, and those who don't make the cut don't get paid. There is no cut on LIV, and the last-place finisher makes $120,000, guaranteed. The winner usually gets $4 million. That's more than Rahm got for winning the Masters!
So how could anyone turn down that kind of money? What's wrong with getting while the getting's good? Rahm answered that last June.
"Yeah, money is great, but when (my wife) Kelley and I... started talking about it, and we're like, 'will our lifestyle change if I got $400 million (perhaps the offer he got for an appearance fee)? No, it will not change one bit," said Rahm, who has made over $23 million in PGA Tour money the last two seasons, more than anyone else.
"Truth be told, I could retire right now with what I've made and I'd live a very happy life and not play golf again. So, I've never really played the game of golf for monetary reasons. I play for the love of the game, and I want to play against the best in the world. I've always been interested in history and legacy, and right now the PGA Tour has that."
Now, that's a guy worth rooting for.
Justin Thomas put it more succinctly last year: "Everything's got a price."
In your case, LIVers, that's your integrity.
But please, don't bother restoring it. Go on, take the blood money and run.
We'll be ready in our living rooms for the next major, with our popcorn, enjoying the show.
Sincerely,
Golf Fans with a brain, soul, and conscience
