‘For money alone’: Scotland’s home of golf takes swing at Saudi Arabian ambitions

As he prepares to tee off at the historic Old Course in St Andrews, the Scottish town known as “Golf’s Hometown,” Dominic Clemons is still digesting the shocking collaboration of Saudi Arabia’s outsize influence on the future of professional players game.

“I feel sorry for the people who are loyal,” said the 20-year-old, referring to players who have resisted the hundreds of millions of dollars offered by LIV Golf, the oil-funded upstart that launches in 2021 to In shaking up the old game, it helps to preserve its tradition.

Backed by Saudi Arabia’s $650 billion sovereign wealth fund, the arrival of LIV Golf has thrown the sport’s elite into unprecedented turmoil as some of its biggest names sign the fortune.

Tiger Woods, one of the richest stars in golf, reportedly turned down a large sum of money to join, but other major players, including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Brook Koepka, have signed. As the US PGA Tour and its European counterparts banned the insurgents from playing, recriminations and lawsuits ensued.

Then came the surprise announcement on Tuesday of a deal to combine commercial activity on the US and European tours with LIV Golf, a new entity chaired by Saudi power broker Yasir al-Rumayyan and financed by Saudi Arabian petrodollars. That has many complaining about the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund’s takeover, rather than a business merger, even though the PGA Tour will have a majority of the voting power.

Saudi Arabia’s bold move underscores how professional golf has become a global sport, wildly popular in the US and much of Europe, and booming in Asia, played by hundreds of millions of people with little connection to its Scottish origins.

But it remains a big part of Scottish identity, especially in St Andrews, a quaint east coast town where golf first emerged in the Middle Ages and which claims to have the oldest course in the world.

The flagship Old Course – along with six others in town – has hosted 30 Open Championships in one of golf’s four “major championships,” more than any other course, with Jack Nicklaus, the late Severbar It has been ridden by legends such as Lesteros and Woods and it fears the 17th “road hole” will lift the famous Claret Jug.

At St Andrews, however, few are willing to let the sport’s new Saudi Arabian co-owners benefit from the doubts. Gary Maxwell of Glasgow-based Ideal Executive Travel is showing clients around the town as he struggles to reconcile the sport’s US and European owners’ previous stance that LIV golf was an existential threat to their sudden acceptance the organization.

He concluded the merger was “just about the money and the money,” adding: “I’m not overly enthusiastic about it, and golf should keep its heritage.”

PIF does have ambitious plans as it seeks to gain recognition from LIV Golf’s team-based format and combine it with the commercial appeal of the PGA Tour, which has blue-chip sponsorships and lucrative broadcast deals. Details will be hammered out in the coming weeks, but the PIF is likely to inject around $3 billion into the new entity, people familiar with the matter told the FT.

Golf in Saudi Arabia comes less than two years after PIF bought a majority stake in Premier League football club Newcastle United. The deal has drawn accusations from human rights groups that its vast sums are being used to soften the image of a country accused of human rights abuses.

Since the merger, some say Riyadh has once again used its wealth to buy prestigious assets to improve its image, this time on a larger scale, hence the resurgence of the “sports shuffle” label.

Moraig Orton, 78, a St Andrews native who first touched golf clubs as a child, said recent events have reinforced her view that professional sport has abandoned its source. “Golf . . . has lost the idea of ​​being everybody’s game,” she said.

Two other golfers, both members of the “Ladies Over 80s Club,” were more vocal in their disapproval. “It would be a shame if the Saudis took it over,” said one person, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Saudi Arabia has a bad history with human rights. St Andrews is inclusive of all genders and ethnic groups,” she added.

Neil Coulson, chief executive of the St Andrews Links Trust, which runs the town’s seven courses, declined to comment on the merger, saying only that he welcomed “initiatives to develop and promote participation and growth in the sport”.

But the shake-up has been welcomed by organizations on courses owned by former US president Donald Trump, including Trump Turnbury in Ayrshire on Scotland’s west coast. Sarah Malone, executive vice-president of Trump International Golf Scotland, called it “the best news in golf in a long time”.

Rebecca Roberts disagrees and is visiting the Old Course to support her son Matt, a top amateur golfer preparing for the St Andrews Links Championship .

She has been thinking about how the LIV Golf merger will shape the future of the game, especially for young golfers who have seen their initial decision to jump ship reap rich rewards.

“You decide to leave for financial gain . . . and then you’re the one sitting pretty,” she said. “I’m not sure if that’s sending the right message to the younger generation.”

Additional reporting by Samuel Agini in London