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      Dustin Johnson Resigns From PGA Tour and Commits to Rival LIV Golf

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      Johnson’s resignation could help him avoid a suspension or a lifetime ban from the tour’s commissioner, Jay Monahan, who has indicated that punishment on that level was a possibility.Dustin Johnson, a two-time major golf champion, surrendered his PGA Tour status on Tuesday and said that for the immediate future he planned only to play in major tournaments and events sponsored by the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit.Appearing at a news conference in advance of the first of eight LIV Golf events in 2022 that will begin Thursday at the Centurion Club outside London, Johnson also occasionally used terms like “right now” and “for now” when describing his decision to bolt from the PGA Tour.“For right now, I’ve resigned my membership on the tour,” said Johnson, who joined the PGA Tour in 2008 and is ranked 15th in the world. He added that he would play the LIV tour, “for now, that’s the plan.”The breakaway tour headlined by Greg Norman has promised hefty appearance fees and a format that guarantees every entrant six-figure payouts, with 48 players competing for $25 million in prize money in a 54-hole format with no cut. A report last week in The Telegraph said Johnson was paid $125 million to join LIV Golf, whose major shareholder is the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia worth more than $600 billion.Johnson’s PGA Tour resignation could help him avoid a suspension or a lifetime ban from the tour’s commissioner, Jay Monahan, who has indicated that punishment on that level was a possibility. But so far, the United States-based PGA Tour has remained quiet as Johnson and others, such as Phil Mickelson, the six-time major champion who has earned more than $94 million at tour events, have signaled that they will play in this week’s LIV Golf tournament. Monahan’s lack of response may just be a bit of institutional timing. PGA Tour players are not in violation of any of the tour’s regulations until they actually play in a rival event without permission — and the tour has not given its consent for any players requesting to play this week in England.One thing is certain: Under current guidelines, if Johnson is not a member of the PGA Tour, he cannot play in the biennial Ryder Cup, a ballyhooed competition between top golfers from the United States and Europe with a history that dates to 1927. Johnson has played in the Ryder Cup five times, including last year when he was undefeated in five matches and helped lead the United States to a dominating victory.Golfers on the driving range Tuesday at the Centurion Club. They will play 54 holes, and there is no cut.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut on Tuesday, at least in his mind, the door was still open to play in the upcoming Ryder Cups.“Obviously all things are subject to change,” Johnson said. “Hopefully at some point, it will change and I’ll be able to participate. If it doesn’t, well, it was another thing I really had to think long and hard about. Ultimately, I decided to come to this and play out here.“The Ryder Cup is unbelievable and something that has definitely meant a lot to me. I’m proud to say I’ve represented my country, and hopefully I’ll get a chance to do that again. But I don’t make the rules.”Johnson’s eligibility for all the major golf championships is not a certainty, although on Tuesday the United States Golf Association released a statement that it would not bar any player who was eligible. “Our decision regarding our field for the 2022 U.S. Open should not be construed as the USGA supporting an alternative organizing entity, nor supportive of any individual player actions or comments,” the statement said. “Rather, it is simply a response to whether or not the USGA views playing in an alternative event, without the consent of their home tour, an offense that should disqualify them for the U.S. Open.” Johnson qualifies for a spot in the field in multiple ways, not the least of which being that he won the championship in 2016. The same is true for Mickelson, who already has a spot in the 2022 U.S. Open and in next month’s British Open.Johnson has also qualified for this year’s British Open because of his 2020 Masters victory. The Masters title would normally make him welcome at the Masters for many years to come, as well as at a fourth major, the P.G.A. Championship, for the next five years.But the Masters is run by Augusta National Golf Club, which has proved in the past that it would make decisions independently. The P.G.A. Championship is governed by the PGA of America. Before that event was held last month, the organization’s chief executive, Seth Waugh, pledged his loyalty to the established PGA Tour, which he referred to as part of golf’s existing ecosystem.“Our bylaws do say that you have to be a recognized member of a recognized tour in order to be a PGA member somewhere, and therefore eligible to play,” Waugh said, speaking of the P.G.A. Championship.Asked about the alternative LIV Golf tour, Waugh answered: “We think the structure of — I don’t know if it’s a league, it’s not a league at this point — but the league structure is somewhat flawed.”How easy it might be for players to try to jockey back and forth between the LIV Golf Invitational series and golf’s biggest events, including the PGA Tour, is not known. Professional golf is largely in uncharted territory, at least in modern times.The LIV Golf prize money and the reported upfront payments to Johnson, and to Mickelson who received a $200 million contract according to Golf Channel, are staggeringly large in comparison to payouts on the PGA Tour. Players scoring in the bottom half of the field after two rounds in most tour events typically earn nothing. And yet, the leading, young stars of the PGA Tour have nonetheless remained unwaveringly loyal.Louis Oosthuizen said on Tuesday that he planned to play only one more year on the PGA Tour.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesJohnson is one of only two top 30 players to join LIV Golf. (Louis Oosthuizen, ranked 21st, is the other.) But the overwhelming majority of the rest in the top 30, who are both the vanguard overtaking the game and generally in their 20s or early 30s, have stood with the PGA Tour.Johnson is 37, and Oosthuizen is 39 and said on Tuesday that he only planned to play one more year on the PGA Tour. In fact, many of the golfers who have committed to this week’s LIV Golf event have seen a declining world ranking lately: Sergio Garcia, 42, was ranked 10th in the men’s world rankings five years ago is now 57th; Graeme McDowell, 42, was ranked 15th in 2012 and is currently No. 374; Ian Poulter, 46, was ranked 12th a decade ago and is now 92nd; Martin Kaymer, 37, the world’s top-ranked men’s golfer in 2011 is now ranked 215th.There is no inevitability that the PGA Tour’s young guard will maintain their solidarity, especially after next month’s British Open, the last major of the season, is contested. The PGA Tour schedule winds down in August when it turns toward the season-ending FedEx Cup playoffs, which awards the winner an ample $15 million. But some tour players who do not qualify for those playoffs might be enticed to enter some of the final, lucrative LIV Golf events in September and October.That might especially be true for golfers with lesser tour status, but they would most likely still face a suspension from the PGA Tour that could continue into next year. And perhaps beyond. Is that worth it?The situation, and the professional golf landscape, is evolving. Johnson, a prominent figure in golf, and Mickelson, a fading, aging — albeit popular — golf personality, have seemed to turn their backs on the status quo. At least temporarily, to hear some of Johnson’s words.Mickelson, it is worth noting, insisted on Tuesday that he planned to keep the lifetime PGA Tour membership he has earned in his long career.If it sounds knotty, keep in mind it could become more tangled. The next stage of golf’s burgeoning face-off may be in court. More

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      PGA Tour Denies Golfers Waivers for Saudi-Backed Tournament

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      The tour has made it clear it will suspend players who defect to Greg Norman’s rival LIV Golf series, which is set to make its debut in England next month.The PGA Tour has sternly refused to grant its membership the ability to play in the inaugural event of a rival Saudi-backed golf tour, which will make its debut next month outside London. The move, announced in a memo to tour members Tuesday night, was hardly a surprise — the PGA Tour is protecting its business — but in the most gentlemanly of sports, it exposed uncharacteristic rancor.It is also pressuring the world’s best men’s golfers, who are highly paid entrepreneurs, to choose sides over where they will collect their millions of dollars in compensation. And not inconsequentially, the focus of the dispute is often the source of the alternative golf circuit, LIV Golf, whose major shareholder is the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.The overwhelming likelihood is that only a small number of players with little standing on the established, American-based PGA Tour — plus a handful of golfers past their prime — will jump to the new golf series, which may not lack for money but currently lacks prestige, or even a TV contract.But if the start-up tour perseveres for years — also not a certainty — and keeps its promise to dole out purses that overshadow those on the PGA Tour, it could sow unrest down the line in a future generation of young pros, especially those raised outside the United States whose focus is not so centered on the PGA Tour.For now, scores of tour players, including everyone at the top of the men’s world rankings, have pledged their fealty to the PGA Tour.Several times, Rory McIlroy, a four-time major winner who is ranked seventh in the world, has declared the breakaway tour “dead in the water.” He has also disapproved of its underpinnings, saying, “I didn’t like where the money was coming from.” Aligning with McIlroy, 33, have been some dominant new faces of the game, like Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth.Caught in the dispute is one of the most renowned players in the sport, Phil Mickelson, who has stepped away from competitive golf for months since making comments in support of the breakaway league.Mickelson was one of several PGA Tour-affiliated players, including Sergio García of Spain and Lee Westwood of England, who applied for a release from the tour to play in the first event of a LIV Golf International Series at the Centurion Club near London from June 9 to 11.The tour is declining to grant those releases, which means players who choose to play in the LIV Golf event will be deemed in violation of tour regulations. Disciplinary action could include suspension or revocation of tour membership.Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, has made it plain to the players this year that the tour will suspend players who defect to the rival league. The same may be true for a player who wants to play even one tournament on the LIV Golf schedule, which includes eight events from June to October, including one in Thailand and five in the United States. In late July, the host site will be Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.Greg Norman, chief executive of LIV Golf Investments, at a news conference at the Centurion Club on Wednesday.Paul Childs/Action Images Via ReutersHours after the PGA Tour declined the players’ requests to play at the Centurion Club event, Greg Norman, a former major golf champion who is the chief executive of LIV Golf Investments, denounced the tour’s decision.“Sadly, the PGA Tour seems intent on denying professional golfers their right to play golf, unless it’s exclusively in a PGA Tour tournament,” Norman said. He added: “Instead, the tour is intent on perpetuating its illegal monopoly of what should be a free and open market. The tour’s action is anti-golfer, anti-fan and anti-competitive.”As if to up the ante, LIV Golf on Tuesday announced plans for more events from 2023 to 2025.The next step in the clash may be in court. Monahan has insisted that the tour’s lawyers believe its decision making will withstand legal scrutiny.While a court case will be less than riveting, the more compelling drama within the drama for golf will be Mickelson’s situation. He has only a few days to commit to playing in next week’s P.G.A. Championship, which he won last year when he became the oldest major champion at age 50. Mickelson has been linked to the LIV Golf circuit for months. In February, he was severely rebuked for incendiary comments attributed to him in support of the Saudi-backed tour.In an interview for a biography to be released next week, Mickelson told the journalist Alan Shipnuck that he knew of the kingdom’s “horrible record on human rights,” but that he was willing to help the new league because it was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to drastically increase the income of PGA Tour players.Shortly afterward, Mickelson, a six-time major winner who has earned nearly $95 million on the PGA Tour, was dropped by several of his corporate sponsors. He apologized and called his remarks “reckless.”Next week, perhaps while Mickelson is making final preparations for his return to competitive golf at the P.G.A. Championship, Shipnuck’s book, “Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar,” will be released. It is expected to shed light on Mickelson’s gambling habits, among other things.Sergio García at the Wells Fargo Championship golf tournament this month in Potomac, Md.Mitch Stringer/USA Today Sports, via ReutersGarcía, another player who has long been considered a candidate to join the LIV Golf enterprise, recently expressed his support of the alternative tour in an unconventional way. Playing in last week’s PGA Tour event near Washington, García was apprised by a golf official of an on-course ruling that went against him. That decision was later determined to be erroneous (but not reversed). García, whose career PGA Tour earnings exceed $54 million, told the official, in a reaction picked up by a nearby television broadcast microphone: “I can’t wait to leave this tour.” He continued: “A couple of more weeks, I don’t have to deal with you anymore.”García, 42, represents the kind of professional golfer who might be most receptive to the promises of the LIV Golf enterprise. A Masters champion with 11 PGA Tour victories, he has been struggling to keep up with the more powerful, long-hitting young players taking over golf. His world ranking has slipped to 46th. He is also not American, like other golfers who are reported to have signed on with the breakaway tour. These players are most likely attracted to LIV Golf’s more global, and limited, schedule. Some players view the American tour as overbearing, restrictive and weighted toward events staged in the United States.In the meantime, there is a ruckus in the genteel world of golf. Its short-term impact is unlikely to rock the boat much. The question will be how long the rival tour can maintain sustainability, and whether that will be enough to seriously churn the sport’s customarily calm and lucrative waters. More

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      Phil Mickelson Praises Saudi-Backed Golf Tour Despite Khashoggi Killing

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      A biographer quoted Mickelson as saying that though he knew of Saudi Arabia’s “horrible record on human rights,” a new golf tour it was funding was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”The pro golfer Phil Mickelson faced a mounting backlash this week for his reported remarks about a Saudi-backed golf tour, with a biographer quoting him as saying that though he knew of the kingdom’s “horrible record on human rights,” the tour was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”Mickelson, a six-time major winner, made the comments during a nearly hourlong phone interview last November, Alan Shipnuck, a longtime golf writer who is completing a biography on the golfer, said on Friday.A former writer for Sports Illustrated and Golf magazine, Mr. Shipnuck reported the remarks on Thursday on The Fire Pit Collective, a golf site.Mickelson, 51, had been asked to comment about his connection to the Super Golf League, an upstart tour whose main source of funding is the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, a sovereign wealth fund totaling more than $400 billion.He called the Saudi authorities “scary,” using a profanity to describe them, and noted the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist who was assassinated in 2018 with the approval of the kingdom’s crown prince, according to U.S. intelligence officials. Mickelson also alluded to the criminalization of homosexuality in Saudi Arabia, where being gay is punishable by death.“We know they killed Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights,” Mickelson was quoted as saying by the biographer. “They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”Representatives for Mickelson, who is one of the biggest names linked to the breakaway tour, and the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.A spokesman for the PGA Tour declined to comment on Friday.When reached on Friday, Mr. Shipnuck said that the golfer had previously declined to be interviewed for his biography, “Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar,” which is scheduled to be published in May. But he said that Mickelson had granted him an on-the-record interview in an attempt to explain his potential involvement in the breakaway tour.“Phil likes to play with fire,” Mr. Shipnuck said. “Sometimes when you play with fire, you’re going to get scorched. I don’t think he realized how hot this topic is with Saudi Arabia.”In his online account of the interview, Mr. Shipnuck said that the golfer had enlisted three other unidentified players to hire lawyers to draft the upstart tour’s operating agreement.Several top golfers criticized Mickelson for his remarks, including Justin Thomas, the eighth-ranked player in the world. Speaking to reporters on Thursday at the Genesis Invitational near Los Angeles, he said it “seems like a bit of a pretty, you know, egotistical statement.”Thomas continued: “It’s like he’s done a lot of great things for the PGA Tour, it’s a big reason it is where it is, but him and others that are very adamant about that, if they’re that passionate, go ahead. I don’t think anybody’s stopping them.”Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald on Friday, the columnist Peter FitzSimons criticized Mickelson’s comments. He urged Greg Norman, a former golf champion and head of the breakaway tour, to cut ties with the new venture.“Well, anyone with a conscience would resign,” Mr. FitzSimons wrote. “But with you I guess that is beside the point here. Your best plan is probably to do what you have been doing, and do better than anyone — hold your nose and go after more money.”Jane MacNeille, a spokeswoman for LIV Golf Investments — the company who chief executive, Mr. Norman, is starting the breakaway tour — heralded Mickelson in a statement on Friday.“Phil is one of the greatest golfers in the history of the game, and we have an enormous amount of respect for him and his career,” she said. “Any league or tour would be lucky to have him.”Brandel Chamblee, an analyst for the Golf Channel and former PGA Tour player, said on Twitter on Friday that “those advocating for the Saudi backed tour, most notably Phil Mickelson, are trying to obfuscate their greed and masquerade that this is about growing the game.” More

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      Newcastle Players, Saudi Jets and Premier League Headaches

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      When Newcastle traveled to Saudi Arabia for a midseason training camp, it did so on a plane owned by a company seized by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.Well before Newcastle United’s players and coaches set off for a warm-weather training camp in Saudi Arabia this week, the new owners of the Premier League soccer team were facing the difficult task of persuading the world that the team would not be an asset of the Saudi state.It has not been an easy case to make: 80 percent of Newcastle, after all, now belongs to the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The P.I.F.’s chairman is Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler.Even the Premier League has in the past expressed concerns about the connections. It delayed Newcastle’s sale for more than a year until, Premier League officials said, it finally allowed the deal to go through in October after receiving unspecified “legally binding assurances” that the Saudi state would not control the soccer team.Those questions only returned this week, however, when Newcastle’s players and coaching staff shuffled down the steps of their private charter flight in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Monday. Photographs of the team’s arrival showed the plane was operated by a company called Alpha Star, an aviation business whose parent company was seized by Prince Mohammed after a purge of senior royals and business figures shortly after he emerged as the likely heir to the Saudi throne.The identity of the company and its seizure were documented as part of a lawsuit in Canada brought by the Saudi state against a former senior intelligence official. Alpha Star and its sister company, Sky Prime, another aviation supplier whose planes carried the group of assassins who killed and dismembered the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, were seized and transferred to the $400 billion sovereign wealth fund — on the orders of Prince Mohammed, according to legal filings — in 2017. The documents revealing the link between the aviation companies and the country’s ruler are part of a long running corruption lawsuit brought by a group of Saudi state-owned companies against the former intelligence official Saad Aljabri, a close confidant of Mohammed bin Nayef, a former interior minister whom Prince Mohammed ousted as crown prince in 2017.But the use of planes — owned by a company created and once contracted by the Saudi state to transport extremists and terrorism suspects — also made it harder, again, for Newcastle’s new British-based owners and executives to claim an arm’s length relationship from their Saudi partners in the P.I.F.State ownership of clubs has become one of the more contentious topics in European soccer in recent years as Paris St.-Germain and Manchester City have both used the seemingly bottomless wealth of their Gulf owners to reshape the economics and competitive balance of the sport. Newcastle fans generally have welcomed the arrival of Saudi riches — and the potential of an on-field revival — at their club, even as critics have raised questions about foreign influence and human rights concerns.Before his team left England, Newcastle United’s coach, Eddie Howe, was pressed about the purpose of the team’s weeklong visit to Saudi Arabia. Howe insisted the motivations were purely sporting, an effort to fine tune the team’s preparations in a warm-weather setting ahead of the second half of the season. But the club faced criticism from human rights groups like Amnesty International, which said the trip risked becoming “a glorified P.R. exercise for Mohammed bin Salman’s government.”On Friday, Howe and his players were reported to have met with representatives of the P.I.F., whose board includes a half-dozen senior Saudi government officials.“I think it just shows, No. 1, why the sale was problematic in the first place and not separate from the Saudi state,” Adam Coogle, a deputy director with the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, said of the trip. “No. 2, it shows they don’t care. They’re just going to flaunt it. They’re not even trying to pretend this isn’t what it is.”A spokesman for P.I.F. declined a request for comment. The Premier League and Newcastle United declined similar requests on Friday.The relationship between Newcastle and Saudi Arabia, though, continues to roil the Premier League. Late last year the league amended its regulations on sponsorships after rivals raised concerns about the prospect of a sudden rush of Saudi Arabian money flowing into the team’s accounts through deals with companies linked to its Gulf ownership.Under a compromise agreement, the league said it would assess all “related party” sponsorships to ensure the agreements were made in line with fair market value.Since the takeover, the Premier League’s chief executive, Richard Masters, has deflected questions about his organization’s ability to ensure that Newcastle did not contravene the assurances about its being separate from the state. When he was asked in November how the league would even know if the local ownership group was following the orders of Prince Mohammed, Masters acknowledged that the league could not know.“In that instance, I don’t think we would know,” he said. “I don’t think it is going to happen. There are legally binding assurances that essentially the state will not be in charge of the club. If we find evidence to the contrary, we can remove the consortium as owners of the club. That is understood.” More