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      Mickelson and LIV Golf Attract Fans and Anger to Oregon

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      Participants in the Saudi-backed event “have turned their backs on the crime of murder,” one critic said. But spectators just wanted to see their favorite players.NORTH PLAINS, Ore. — Even as Phil Mickelson and other marquee players teed off to applause on Thursday in a Saudi government-backed tournament outside Portland, the golfers were excoriated in a protest and an affiliated television ad by family members and survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.It was a sign of the divisive nature of the start-up LIV Golf series, and a jarring contrast to the enthusiasm of the gallery that followed Mickelson around the course at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club, chanting such encouragement as “Man of the people, Phil, man of the people.”The Sept. 11 family members held a news conference Thursday morning to express their vehement opposition to the first of five LIV tournaments being held this year in the United States. And they sponsored a television ad that pilloried the tournament and the involvement of such stars as Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau.The 30-second ad mentioned Saudi links to the terrorist attacks and noted that 15 of the 19 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia. It also made reference to the death of Fallon Smart, a 15-year-old girl who was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing a street in Portland in 2016. A Saudi community college student facing charges disappeared before trial and was apparently spirited back home by the Saudi authorities.The ad showed photographs of Mickelson and other stars playing here, gave out the Pumpkin Ridge phone number and criticized the Saudis for using the tactic known as sportswashing to attempt to cleanse their dismal record on human rights.“We’ll never forgive Pumpkin Ridge or the players for helping Saudi Arabia cover up who they really are,” the ad said. It continued: “Don’t let the Saudi government try to clean up its image using American golf tournaments.”The family of Terrance Aiken, who was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, protested the Saudi-backed LIV Golf event on Thursday.Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian, via Associated PressTen Sept. 11 family members and one survivor of the attacks traveled to the Portland area to protest the tournament. They said they tried unsuccessfully to meet with some LIV golfers at a hotel on Thursday morning.Brett Eagleson, 36, whose father, Bruce, died in the collapse of the south tower of the World Trade Center, called the Saudi endeavor “shameful” and “disgraceful” and called on the LIV golfers to understand and acknowledge the kingdom’s links to the attacks, which took nearly 3,000 lives.He called on Mickelson to “be a man, step up, accept the truth of who you’re getting in bed with.”The Saudi government has long denied any involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. The Sept. 11 Commission, in its 2004 report, found “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” Al Qaeda, which carried out the attacks. But there has been speculation of involvement by other, lower-ranking officials, and an F.B.I. investigation discovered circumstantial evidence of such support, according to a 2020 report by The New York Times Magazine and ProPublica.Tim Frolich, a banker from Brooklyn who escaped from the 80th floor of the south tower but severely injured his left foot and ankle while running from the tower’s collapse, said the golfers had been “bought off” and were accepting “blood money” from the LIV series. The Saudi-sponsored tour offered signing bonuses, some reported to be in the nine figures, to lure some golfers like Mickelson from the PGA Tour.“This is nothing more than a group of very talented athletes who appear to have turned their backs on the crime of murder,” said Frolich, who will turn 58 this month.Mickelson was not made available to reporters on Thursday. In an interview published in February, he told his biographer, Alan Shipnuck, that the Saudis were “scary” and had a “horrible record on human rights,” including the 2018 killing and dismemberment of the Washington Post columnist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi. Mickelson later apologized for his remarks. He joined LIV Golf in June.No official attendance figures were given for the three-day tournament’s opening round, played under a cloudless sky with temperatures in the 70s. But the crowd to watch mostly aging players in decline was perhaps only a third of the daily attendance of 25,000 or so at a typical event on the rival PGA Tour. Mickelson, 52, finished the round at three over par, eight strokes behind the leader, Carlos Ortiz of Mexico. Still, Mickelson has a vocal and dedicated following.A number of spectators interviewed said they were simply interested in seeing a sporting event and avoiding geopolitics.“It’s messy, potentially, but I’m just here to watch golf and kind of block out all of that stuff,” said Stacy Wilson, 44, of Vancouver, Wash., a longtime fan of Mickelson’s who said she was taking advantage of an opportunity to watch him play in person. “I just choose to have tunnel vision about it and enjoy the game.”Some spectators noted that President Biden would be engaging with the Saudis in a trip there in mid-July. Others said they found it a double standard that golfers were being singled out when China has benefited from hosting two Olympics and from $10 billion in reported investments from N.B.A. team owners despite the country’s poor human rights record.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 5A new series. More

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      LIV Golf Is Drawing Big Names and Heavy Criticism in Oregon

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      As golfers arrive for the $25 million Saudi-backed tournament, a mayor, some 9/11 families, a U.S. senator and some Pumpkin Ridge club members have expressed outrage.NORTH PLAINS, Ore. — The Saudi government-backed LIV Golf Invitational series arrives in the United States on Thursday as it continues to roil a genteel sport with a slogan that promises, “Golf, but louder.” Except this is probably not the kind of noise its supporters had in mind.There is vehement opposition by some to holding the three-day tournament at the Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club, about 20 miles northwest of Portland. The disapproval has come from politicians, a group of 9/11 survivors and family members, club members who have resigned in protest and at least one outspoken club board member. Critics have decried what they describe as Saudi Arabia’s attempt to use sports to soften the perception in the West of its grim human rights record.Portland is the first of five LIV (a Roman numeral referring to the 54-hole format) tournaments to be held in the United States this year. The newly formed tour, with its lucrative prize money and eight-figure participation fees, has quickly become a threat to the long-established PGA Tour as marquee players such as Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka have joined the Saudi endeavor.The Portland tournament will take place as local fury still simmers from the 2016 death of Fallon Smart, a 15-year-old high school student who was killed while crossing a Portland street by a driver traveling nearly 60 miles an hour. A Saudi community college student, facing felony charges of manslaughter and hit and run for Smart’s death, removed a tracking device and disappeared before trial, returning home apparently with the assistance of Saudi officials.Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, has been insistently seeking justice for Smart and beseeching the White House to hold the Saudis more accountable. He has criticized the LIV golf tournament, which is backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, as an attempt to cleanse the country’s human rights reputation, a tactic known as sportswashing.Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said the Saudis could not have picked “a more insulting and painful place to hold a golf tournament.”Jason Andrew for The New York Times“No matter how much they cough up, they’re not going to be able to wash away” that reputation, Wyden said in an interview. Referring to Smart’s death, he added, “The Saudis could not have picked a more insulting and painful place to hold a golf tournament.”Teri Lenahan, the mayor of tiny North Plains, population 3,440, has signed a letter with 10 other mayors from the area objecting to the LIV tournament, though they acknowledge they cannot stop it. Some members of Pumpkin Ridge have resigned in protest.Some family members and survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks have planned a news conference for Thursday to discuss what they called the golfers’ “willing complicity” to take money from a country whose citizenry included 15 of the 19 hijackers.Critics of the tournament note that American intelligence officials concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, ordered the killing and dismemberment of the dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018; that 81 men were executed in Saudi Arabia in a single day in March, calling into question the fairness of its criminal justice system; and that Saudi women did not receive permission to drive until 2018 after a longstanding ban and still must receive permission from a male relative to make many decisions in their lives.“I really felt it was a moral obligation to speak out and say we cannot support this golf tournament because of where the funds are coming from to support it,” Lenahan said in an interview. “The issue is the Saudi government publicly executed people, oppresses women and considers them second-class citizens. And they killed a journalist and dismembered him. It’s disgusting.”Escalante Golf, a Texas firm that owns the Pumpkin Ridge course, did not respond to requests for comment.The LIV tournament will go on, playing out against a backdrop of realpolitik. As a candidate, President Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for the murder of Khashoggi. But Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia in mid-July, seeking, among other things, relief from the oil-rich kingdom for spiking gasoline prices in the United States.In truth, the issue of human rights frequently takes a back seat to financial and marketing concerns in the realm of international sports. China, for instance, was named to host the Winter Olympics in 2022 and the Summer Games in 2008. And the N.B.A. does robust business there. A recent ESPN report said the league’s principal team owners have more than $10 billion invested in China.Greg Norman, the golfing legend who is the face of the LIV series, recently claimed that the PGA Tour had 23 sponsors doing more than $40 billion worth of business in Saudi Arabia, saying in an interview on Fox News: “The hypocrisy in all this, it’s so loud. It’s deafening.”Greg Norman, above, chief executive and commissioner of LIV Golf, spoke at the LIV Golf Invitational welcome party, right, in Portland, Ore.Chris Trotman/LIV Golf, via Getty ImagesJoe Scarnici/LIV Golf via Getty ImagesThere have been clumsy moments in support of the Saudi involvement in golf. When asked about Khashoggi’s killing last month at a promotional event in the United Kingdom, Norman said, “Look, we’ve all made mistakes.”The creation of the LIV tour has resurfaced longstanding questions about athletes’ moral obligations and their desire to compete and earn money.Speaking generally, Wyden, who briefly played college basketball, said the Saudi approach is “really part of an autocratic playbook.” He continued: “They go in and try to buy everybody off, buy their silence,” figuring that “something somebody is going to be upset about on Tuesday, everybody’s going to forget about on Thursday.”The Portland tournament will feature $25 million in prize money, including $5 million for team play and $4 million to the individual winner.At news conferences here, golfers acknowledged the financial attraction of the LIV tour. And they said they respected various opinions about their involvement. Some played down human rights issues, while others, like Sergio García and Lee Westwood, said they felt golf could be a force for good.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 5A new series. More

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      Will LIV Golf Diminish PGA Tour Events Like the Travelers Championship?

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      A prized mainstay of Connecticut’s sporting calendar for 70 years, the Travelers has become more than just a golf tournament.CROMWELL, Conn. — The Travelers Championship in central Connecticut, contested on a golf course beside cornfields, is celebrating its 70th anniversary this week, which makes it one of the oldest continuously operated PGA Tour events. Through the decades, the tournament has changed names and venues, but in a small state lacking a professional franchise in one of the four leading North American sports (the N.H.L.’s Hartford Whalers left 25 years ago), the Travelers has been a prized mainstay of Connecticut’s sporting calendar.It has also been valuable to the PGA Tour, reliably drawing some of the biggest crowds of the tour season. It is beloved by golfers because of its homespun approach that showers players’ wives and children with personal attention, and that in turn has produced a host of marquee winners like Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth and Bubba Watson.Xander Schauffele playing his shot from the first tee during the second round on Friday.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesThe 1995 winner was Greg Norman, then the No. 1-ranked men’s golfer worldwide. Norman is the chief executive of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series, which has roiled the PGA Tour by luring top golfers with guaranteed contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In the span of two months, the upstart circuit has threatened the primacy of the PGA Tour, and, potentially, the tour’s legacy events like the Travelers — which, in addition to entertaining southern New England golf fans, has attracted sponsorships that have led to more than $46 million in donations to 800 charities.The chief beneficiary most years has been a camp in northern Connecticut that helps about 20,000 seriously ill children and their families each year and was founded by a state resident, the actor Paul Newman.The focus of the intense showdown between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, whose major shareholder is the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, has been garish monetary offers to already wealthy golfers — along with a host of geopolitical underpinnings — but unseen in the struggle are other connected entities, like Connecticut’s treasured golf tournament.Could LIV Golf, which has planned eight events this year, including five in the United States, eventually upend or diminish the Travelers Championship and the other 30-plus PGA Tour events like it around the country? Already, Mickelson and Johnson, who were recently banned from the tour along with every other LIV Golf defector, are missing from this week’s field. Mickelson, 52, probably would not have played, but Johnson, the 2020 champion, had enthusiastically promised in February to return to Connecticut.Scott Halleran/Getty ImagesPGA TOUR Archive via Getty ImagesThree past champions, from top left, Phil Mickelson, Greg Norman, and Dustin Johnson, who are all involved with the LIV Golf series.Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports, via ReutersStanding on a hillside in the fan gallery overlooking the 18th hole during the first round of the Travelers on Thursday, Jay Hibbard of Woodstock, Conn., said Johnson was missed, “but not that much.”“Dustin took the money and made a choice, but I don’t come here to root for any one golfer,” Hibbard, 39, said. “Most golf fans come for the atmosphere and to see great golfers up close. And there’s enough other major champions out here this week.”Standing nearby, Mike Stanley of Plainville, Conn., said: “It’s a little depressing to see things get split up because I think it’s natural to want all the best guys playing together. But there’s still a bunch of top guys — I was following Rory McIlroy today and then Scottie Scheffler.”Scheffler and McIlroy are first and second in the men’s world rankings and were joined in the Travelers field by four other top 15 golfers. By contrast, no player committed to the LIV Golf tour is ranked in the worldwide top 15.Inside the players’ locker room here this week, Sahith Theegala, a 24-year-old PGA Tour rookie, said the players his age are of a similar mind: Their loyalty is to the PGA Tour.“I come from a modest upbringing,” Theegala said, “and I feel like the value of money has been kind of lost. It just seems like a million dollars, which a lot of guys earn on this tour, gets thrown around like it’s nothing, right?”Sahith Theegala lined up a putt on the seventh hole during the first round on Thursday.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesAsked if he was worried about the future of PGA Tour events like the Travelers, Theegala shook his head.“There’s a history and legacy of this tour that the young guys have longed to be a part of,” Theegala said. “A new tour has no standing; you’re literally just playing for money.”A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

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      Saudi Arabia, Creator of LIV Golf, Casts Its Eye on Women’s Tennis

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      The kingdom shook up the PGA Tour with the creation of the LIV Golf series. Now it is pushing to secure a WTA Tour event.With the golf world already divided over Saudi Arabia’s emergence as a powerful force in the game, another major sport is contending with whether to do business with the kingdom.This time it’s women’s tennis, which pulled out of China last year over concerns for the welfare of a player who accused a Chinese vice premier of sexual assault and later disappeared from sight.Saudi Arabia has approached the Women’s Tennis Association about hosting an event, possibly the Tour Finals, but the WTA has not entertained the prospect of a tournament there in any formal fashion.Steve Simon, chief executive of the WTA, declined to be interviewed for this article, but a spokeswoman, Amy Binder, confirmed Saudi Arabia’s interest, saying in a statement, “As a global organization, we are appreciative of inquiries received from anywhere in the world and we look seriously at what each opportunity may bring.”In recent weeks, professional golf has been upended by the start of the LIV Golf Invitational series, which is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and is paying $4 million prizes to tournament winners, along with participation fees reportedly as high as $200 million. Players like Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson who have left the PGA Tour and joined LIV Golf have been accused by other players of helping the kingdom to “sportswash” its human rights abuses, among them the 2018 government-sponsored killing of the Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi.Saudi Arabia’s interest in tennis was first reported by The Telegraph in Britain.The kingdom in recent years has invested heavily in sports and cultural events as part of a broader effort to project a new image around the world. The women’s tennis tour would be likely to face questions if it staged events in Saudi Arabia, where women’s rights have been curtailed and women gained the right to drive only in 2018. (Saudi Arabia has staged professional women’s golf events, hosting official Ladies European Tour stops each of the last three years.)Peng Shuai of China at the 2019 Australian Open.Edgar Su/ReutersWhen the veteran Chinese player Peng Shuai disappeared last year, Simon demanded a full investigation of her allegations. Peng eventually reappeared, but when Chinese authorities did not allow Peng to meet independently with Simon and the WTA, Simon suspended all of the tour’s business in China, including its 10-year deal to hold the Tour Finals in Shenzen.It was a significant financial blow to the WTA. China had paid a record $14 million in prize money in 2019, the first year of the agreement. That was double the amount of prize money from 2018, when the WTA Finals finished its five-year run in Singapore. The WTA relocated the finals last year to Guadalajara, Mexico, which offered only $5 million in prize money and a drastically reduced payment for the right to host the event.WTA leaders have yet to announce the WTA Finals host city for 2022, and it remains a challenge, with the longer-term Shenzhen deal still in place, to find candidates interested in bidding for the Finals for just one year.Saudi Arabia, with its appetite for international sport and huge financial resources, fits the profile of a potential bidder.“They are interested in women’s sports, and they are interested in big events, so for sure,” said the Austrian businessman and tennis tournament promoter Peter-Michael Reichel.The WTA has held events in Arab countries, including Qatar and Dubai, for years. But Saudi Arabia has yet to secure an official tour event in men’s or women’s tennis despite making increasingly serious offers.Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were set to play an exhibition there in December 2018 but were put under pressure to cancel it after the assassination of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October of that year. The exhibition match was eventually called off with Nadal citing an ankle injury.Daniil Medvedev of Russia played at an event in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, in 2019.Fayez Nureldine/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA year later, an eight-man tennis exhibition was played in Riyadh in December 2019 ahead of the start of the regular men’s tennis season. The Diriyah Tennis Cup featured the leading ATP players Daniil Medvedev of Russia, Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland and John Isner of the United States and was played in a temporary 15,000-seat stadium. Prince Abdul Aziz bin Turki al-Faisal, chairman of the Saudi General Sports Authority, called hosting the event “another watershed moment for the kingdom” and hit the ceremonial first serve.Reichel helped organize the 2019 exhibition through his company RBG. He said the exhibition had to be canceled in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic but that the plan was to revive the event later this year and include a women’s exhibition tournament.“I’m very optimistic we can develop the tennis business there,” Reichel said in a telephone interview from London on Thursday.Reichel said he believes it’s appropriate for sports to do business with Saudi Arabia, which he said has advanced as a society since he first went there on business in 1983.“I was so positively surprised,” he said. “I was there many times. The international image is talking about the murder of Khashoggi and the driving licenses for women. This is what people know, and there is much more to be reported, I think.”Reichel’s company owns and operates the WTA tournament in Linz, Austria, and the ATP tournament in Hamburg, Germany. He is a member of the WTA board of directors and has been one of those lobbying for Saudi Arabia to have an official tour event. But for now, those efforts have fallen short. The ATP recently rebuffed a proposal that Reichel was involved in to relocate an existing event to Saudi Arabia.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

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      Under Pressure From LIV Golf, the PGA Tour Defends Its Perch

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      Jay Monahan, the tour’s commissioner, announced prize money increases for next year to try to appease players and called the rival circuit an “irrational threat” that was trying to “buy the sport.”CROMWELL, Conn. — For the last month, as the upstart, Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit has poached some of the most widely known players from the established PGA Tour, there has been speculation that eventually the rival organizations might have to learn to coexist.But a passionate Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour’s commissioner, did not sound conciliatory on Wednesday. Using forceful language in his first news conference since mid-March, Monahan continued to assert the PGA Tour’s primacy, announced a substantial increase in future tour prize money and accused LIV Golf of trying to “buy the sport.”“If this is an arms race, and if the only weapons here are dollar bills, the PGA Tour can’t compete,” Monahan told reporters on the eve of the Travelers Championship in central Connecticut. “The PGA Tour, an American institution, can’t compete with a foreign monarchy that is spending billions of dollars in an attempt to buy the game of golf.“We welcome good, healthy competition. The LIV Saudi golf league is not that. It’s an irrational threat, one not concerned with the return on investment or true growth of the game.”Monahan, who met with about 100 PGA Tour-affiliated players Tuesday, said he told the group that the tour “will ultimately come out of the current challenge stronger because of our loyalty and support of our players and fans.”The LIV Golf series, however, did not let Monahan have the stage to himself Wednesday. About two minutes into Monahan’s news conference, LIV Golf announced that the four-time major champion Brooks Koepka had officially left the PGA Tour to join the alternative tour. LIV Golf also announced a majority of the field for its first tournament in the United States, to begin June 30 at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club outside Portland, Ore.There was also other news in the sport. As expected, officials for next month’s British Open said they would not bar players aligned with LIV Golf from the major tournament. Several of those golfers, like Koepka, have already qualified for the British Open because of their current world rankings or past major titles. That could change in the future, but as was the case for last week’s U.S. Open outside Boston, British Open officials were unwilling to exclude players who had already met the stated criteria for eligibility at this year’s event.And on the player front, several PGA Tour players at the Travelers Championship privately grumbled about how Koepka, just a week ago, was openly supporting a show of solidarity from a majority of top-tier golfers who have remained loyal to the tour. When asked about Koepka’s defection Wednesday, Rory McIlroy, who is second in the men’s world golf rankings, said: “I’m surprised at a lot of these guys because they say one thing and then they do another.”He added: “But it’s pretty duplicitous on their part.”Asked if he was talking about something Koepka said months ago or recently, McIlroy answered: “The whole way through, in public and private, all of it.”In addition to announcing the PGA Tour’s plans to enhance the payouts at eight tour events next year by $54 million, Monahan continued to pay tribute to his tour’s ethos as a meritocracy in which players are awarded prize money based on performance as opposed to the LIV Golf series where several golfers have signed guaranteed contracts reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars. LIV Golf events also have no cuts, meaning every player is assured at least a six-figure payday.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

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      As Koepka Leaves for LIV Golf, the PGA Tour Mulls Changes

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      Brooks Koepka, a four-time major winner, and another top-20 player committed to the new series Tuesday. In a players’ meeting, the PGA Tour commissioner outlined tweaks that included a revised schedule.Since March, Brooks Koepka has emphatically denied he would consider joining the breakaway, Saudi-backed LIV Golf series.“Money isn’t going to change my life,” Koepka said at the time with a disdainful sneer. As recently as two weeks ago, Koepka was still telling fellow players he was not interested in leaving the PGA Tour.On Tuesday, he defected to the rival LIV Golf circuit, which will hold its second event, outside Portland, Ore., starting on June 30.What changed for Koepka? It would be easy to say there were most likely more than 100 million reasons for him to reverse course since other former PGA Tour players such as Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau have reportedly received nine-figure contracts to align with LIV Golf. The new circuit promises a limited, shortened schedule that gives golfers more flexibility and hosts no-cut tournaments in which every player is guaranteed a hefty payday.But every player who entered the inaugural LIV Golf event outside London earlier this month was suspended by the PGA Tour, and future entrants to upcoming LIV Golf tournaments will be treated similarly.Koepka’s decision is not a surprise — he telegraphed it with a scornful news conference at last week’s U.S. Open outside Boston — but it is another victory for LIV Golf in its fight for credibility against the established PGA Tour. Abraham Ancer of Mexico, who is 31 years old and ranked 20th in the men’s world rankings, also committed to the LIV Golf series on Tuesday.Koepka, 32, who won four major championships between 2017 and 2019, has been injured and struggling for years. His world ranking has slipped to No. 19 this week from No. 1 in 2019. In a bit of irony, Koepka is joining LIV Golf about 10 days after DeChambeau, his longtime antagonist, switched his allegiance. DeChambeau has also been dogged by health issues. Once viewed as a hard-swinging, bulked up game-changing phenomenon who captivated younger fans with his audacious length off the tee, DeChambeau has tumbled from fourth in the rankings to 30th. He was an afterthought at last week’s U.S. Open, finishing tied for 56th. Koepka missed the cut at this year’s Masters Tournament and finished outside the top 50 at last month’s P.G.A. Championship and at last week’s U.S. Open.But Koepka’s exit nonetheless provides another noteworthy bit of unexpected momentum for LIV Golf, whose major shareholder is the Private Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. Only six weeks ago, there was nearly universal solidarity among the PGA Tour’s player ranks.Each reversal of opinion sends little tremors through the close-knit community of PGA Tour players and has meaning. A fear of getting left behind can pervade the group, as with any other, especially when players keep going back on their word. Their colleagues may ponder: Should I jump ship now, before it’s too late and the top LIV Golf contracts are gone?Some perspective is necessary. A considerable majority of the best young players have remained loyal to the PGA Tour. Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas — ranked first through fifth — affirm their commitment to the PGA Tour weekly. Morikawa did it again Tuesday when he tweeted: “To state for the record, once again, you all are absolutely wrong. I’ve said it since February at Riviera that I’m here to stay on the PGA Tour and nothing has changed.”But it is easy to wonder how many more new faces there might be in the field by June 30, when LIV Golf makes its first appearance in the United States. The full list of entrants is expected this week.How many will be in the field when the upstart tour arrives at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., on July 29? That tournament will be held after the mid-July British Open, the last of this year’s major men’s golf championships.Abraham Ancer, 31, also committed to LIV Golf on Tuesday.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesWhat is known is that the pressure continues to ramp up on the PGA Tour to respond to the credible threat LIV Golf is posing. And Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, has the framework of a plan to at least partially appease players attracted to a shorter schedule and greater earnings. (Hint: It looks an awful lot like the LIV Golf schedule and prize money.)A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

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      Zalatoris, Fitzpatrick Share U.S. Open Lead Heading Into Final Round

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      Tied for the tournament lead entering Sunday, Will Zalatoris will get another shot at his first major win after surviving a perilous third round.BROOKLINE, Mass. — The U.S. Open usually waits until the final day of its 72-hole crucible to toy with the world’s best golfers. But perhaps in tribute to the venerable history of this year’s host, vexing conditions — blustery winds, thick rough and fast greens — began to crush the wills and sap the souls of the players 24 hours early at the Country Club outside Boston.With an under-par score a rarity, the top of Saturday’s third round leaderboard was overhauled frequently. In the end, a handful of this year’s hottest golfers remained in contention, joined by some lesser-known names to set up what figures to be an entertaining final-round slugfest against a golf course that one of the co-leaders, Will Zalatoris, called “an absolute beast.”Zalatoris’s determined round of 67, the lowest on Saturday, left him four-under par for the championship, tied with Matthew Fitzpatrick of England, who shot a two-under par 68. Jon Rahm, the defending U.S. Open champion, squandered a late lead in the round to fall one stroke behind Zalatoris and Fitzpatrick.Rahm had rallied from a stumbling start in his first 13 holes to make three birdies from the 14th to the 17th holes. That moved him to five-under par for the championship.But Rahm’s drive from the 18th tee dribbled into a bunker on the left side of the fairway. Rahm’s first attempt to clear the bunker’s high lip failed, and his ball rolled back into the sand. His next shot landed in the easy-to-find 18th hole front bunker. The combination of mistakes brought a messy end to Rahm’s round: a double bogey that dropped him into third place.Afterward, Rahm said he misjudged how deep his golf ball had been in the sand, in part because it was getting dark.“I had a 9-iron in hand, that’s plenty to get over that lip,” he said. “Maybe I was trying to get too cute — looking for another birdie.“But it doesn’t really matter much,” Rahm added. “I’m content where I am and happy with how I played.”Three golfers were tied for fourth at two-under par, including Keegan Bradley, a Vermont native who was roundly cheered by the New England crowd as he walked up the 18th fairway on Saturday. Adam Hadwin of Canada, ranked 105th in the men’s world golf rankings, shot an even par 70 to tie Bradley. Scottie Scheffler, the reigning Masters champion, joined the group after a chaotic, inconsistent round.Zalatoris was one of the few who rarely struggled Saturday, with four birdies and only one bogey. Even when he badly sliced his last tee shot of the day 35 yards to the right of the 18th fairway, he landed in a corridor between a grandstand and another temporary structure.Though 224 yards away from the hole, he had enough of an opening to lace a precise long iron into the famed, mammoth bunker that protects the 18th green. From there, Zalatoris splashed a spinning, gutsy shot from the sand and then sank a six-foot par-saving putt.Although Zalatoris is just 25, he is playing in his ninth major golf championship and has already contended for a legacy-defining title multiple times. Last month, he lost the P.G.A. Championship playoff against Justin Thomas, and he finished second at the 2021 Masters Tournament. He also finished tied for sixth at this year’s Masters and at the 2020 U.S. Open.The narrow defeats in majors have not demoralized Zalatoris.“I know I’m going to get one,” he said after this year’s P.G.A. Championship. “It’s just a matter of time.”But Zalatoris knows the battle against the Country Club’s devilish, decades-old challenges will not be won, only survived.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

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      At the U.S. Open, Brooks Koepka Is in His Happy Place, and in Contention

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      Koepka, who won the Open in 2017 and 2018, has made no secret of focusing on only the four major tournaments. He could be the perfect candidate to join the LIV Golf series. But will he?BROOKLINE, Mass. — As Brooks Koepka strode down the first fairway on a humid Friday morning, one fan shouted his approval of the golfer’s clothing.“It’s a great day to wear white, Brooks. It’s hot out here,” the fan yelled. “Stay cool baby but don’t be afraid to get hot.”Koepka, wearing a white shirt, navy slacks and a pale green cap in the second round of the U.S. Open, heeded the fan’s advice, rebounding from an opening round 73 to post a three-under-par 67.That put him at even par after two rounds and in a familiar position — within striking distance of the lead heading into the weekend at the Country Club. Koepka had made the cut in his last seven U.S. Opens and finished no worse than tied for 18th.Koepka, who won the U.S. Open in 2017 with a score of 16 under par, and won again in 2018, speaks almost paternalistically about the Open. His schedule this season has been tilted toward the majors — those are the only events he has played since late March — and he seems to thrive on the challenges presented by this particular tournament.“I love this event,” he said. “This event has always been good to me.”It’s hard to argue otherwise. Koepka is the most successful U.S. Open player of the last decade.No one else in the 156-man field has won two U.S. Opens. The last four times he has played the tournament — he missed the Open in 2020 because of knee and hip injuries — he has two victories, in 2017 and 2018, a second-place finish in 2019 and a tie for fourth in 2021, finishes that have earned Koepka more than $6 million. In those four events, only four players — Gary Woodland, Jon Rahm, Louis Oosthuizen and Harris English, have finished ahead of Koepka.“That’s pretty cool,” Koepka said, while adding, “I wish it was less.”He is one of only seven players to win consecutive U.S. Opens; the last to do it before Koepka was Curtis Strange in 1988 and 1989.But given his lack of tournament play this year, it was difficult to predict how well the 32-year-old, four-time major champion — he had back-to-back PGA Championship victories in 2018 and 2019 — would fare. He missed the cut at the Masters. And he attributed his underwhelming performance at the PGA Championship in May — a tie for 55th — to focusing more on his upcoming wedding.“I was waiting for that party,” he said of the weeklong celebration in early June in Turks and Caicos.Afterward, Koepka retreated to his home in Jupiter, Fla., worked for four days with his caddie, Ricky Elliott, and dismissed any talk of rustiness from his layoff when he arrived at the Country Club.Koepka celebrating with his caddie Ricky Elliott after sinking his final putt to win the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.Tannen Maury/EPA, via Shutterstock“I’ve had a lot of other stuff going on,” he said. “Sometimes, look, golf is great and all and I love it but at the same time, I’ve got other stuff I like to do. The wedding was a big thing. Now it’s over with and I can go and play golf.”He became irritated with reporters at his pretournament news conference on Tuesday, chiding them for asking him and other golfers questions about the LIV Golf International series, the Saudi-financed rebel golf tour that has lured stars like Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson with enormous paydays. The tour will play its second event, one of five in the United States, near Portland, Ore., beginning on June 30.Koepka’s star power and penchant for downtime make him an ideal target for the upstart tour, which so far has announced eight, 54-hole events with shotgun starts, no cut and huge purses even for the last-place finishers. (Players who have resigned their PGA Tour membership, or been suspended from the Tour, because they joined the LIV Golf series, can still play the four major tournaments that are not run by the PGA Tour, although that could change.)Koepka, ranked 19th in the world, also could command a hefty signing bonus. Mickelson has been reported to have received as much as $200 million and Johnson as much as $150 million to join LIV Golf, which is funded by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Koepka’s brother, Chase, plays on the tour.“I’m here. I’m here at the U.S. Open,” Brooks Koepka said when asked about LIV Golf. “You are all throwing this black cloud over the U.S. Open. I’m tired of all this stuff.”A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 5A new series. More