The Sykes-Picot golf tour

Writing from Sugar Grove, Illinois

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

In a time well past, George Santayana noted, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

With that, welcome to the second visit of the LIV Golf operation to the Chicago area, specifically Rich Harvest Farms. Mr. Santayana’s warning is brought forth in this circumstance not because Rich Harvest, Jerry Rich’s immaculately kept back yard, is again the stage for this three-day festival of golf and music, but thanks to the overarching agreement between the PGA Tour and LIV owner Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

Any well-informed reader – we count all of you in that category – recalls the 1962 motion picture “Lawrence of Arabia.” Among the most beautifully photographed epics in cinema history, it tells, albeit Hollywood-enhanced, the tale of Thomas Edward Lawrence, a Brit who, while in the Royal Army, became infatuated with the Arab cause of self-rule over the sand swept lands south of the Ottoman Empire, of what remains today we know as Turkey.

While Lawrence was going about his business of helping the Arabs blow up bridges, attack Ottoman outposts and create other forms of mayhem, the British and French, each of whom were still of a colonial bent and were more interested in the control of lands far beyond their own, conspired to carve up the territory, drawing lines in the sand the Arabs claimed for themselves.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement, named for the diplomats who wielded the pens on the map, was drawn up in the early months of 1916, while they were also fighting the Germans in the Great War. At this distance, one would think dealing with the Kaiser’s forces would have been quite enough trouble, but no.

The carving up of the deserts on the map remained a secret until November 1917, when the news came from Moscow, fallout from the Russian Revolution. The Manchester Guardian then reported the details. When the news got back to Lawrence out in the desert, he was said to be crestfallen. For all the TNT expended and all the rousing of the natives against the infidel Ottomans, he was sold out.

Fast-forward, as they do in the movies, to the present day and Rich Harvest, where Cameron Smith seeks to both defend the title he won here last year and overhaul Talor Gooch to take the lead in the LIV money race. That, and how well Brooks Koepka is prepared for next week’s Ryder Cup, is the concern of the moment, but the looming story is what, if anything, will happen to the LIV operation once the agreement between the PIF and the PGA Tour is finalized.

Tim Monahan, the PGA Tour’s commissioner, and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the PIF governor with the ear of Mohammad bin Salman, the Saudi Arabian ruler and PIF chairman who isn’t above ordering the murder of journalists and others who displease his excellency, are the negotiators this time around. Monahan no doubt would think he was both Sykes and Picot should he stop to consider it. Al-Rumayyan knows his own identity. He’s the one holding all the cards.

It was PIF’s financing of LIV, which hired Greg Norman as the front man, that brought about the signing of many PGA Tour stars beginning with Phil Mickelson, and brought upheaval to the American-based circuit, as well as the European Tour. The LIV inroads proved impossible to ignore, so the PGA Tour raised purses for a series of “elevated” tournaments mimicking the LIV windfall, minus the signing bonuses. That was supposed to stem the tide of departures. It barely did, and it chewed into the Tour's rainy-day fund, so in secret, the Tour began to negotiate with PIF.

Little came of the clandestine chatter until Monahan and Al-Rumayyan huddled in Venice, Italy, in early May. That meeting advanced the idea of a partnership, and a subsequent one in San Francisco sealed the preliminary agreement, which canceled the legal action on each side – that in itself was a financial relief for the PGA Tour – and provided for talks aiming toward a final settlement that would see the Saudis throw their billions at the combined operation of the PGA Tour, European (a.k.a. DP World) Tour and the LIV, but with the PGA Tour determining the latter’s fate. The PGA Tour’s players were blindsided, but recovered sufficiently to force the expansion of the Tour’s policy board to include Tiger Woods, making it a player-majority for the first time since its formation in 1969.

Woods, a critic of LIV, has also been a critic of Norman for leading the charge.

Imagine, now, that you are Norman, whose initial attempt to start a big-name big-money tour in the 1990s was cut down by Deane Beman, the twice-removed predecessor of Monahan. Brought in by the Saudis for his expertise, if you will, the Australian about to be cut down again. His role as LIV commissioner is said to be vanishing as soon as the final deal is inked. (Recently, a British tabloid reported the LIV operation will comprise a portion of the fall season, but that report has not been confirmed on or off the record by anyone else, so for the moment, believe in it as much as you believe in the Easter Bunny.)

Norman, whose confidence meter is always pinned in the manner of Lawrence, now has in Woods a formidable opponent. Woods’ playing days are largely done, but he’s still the face of the Tour, respected by players and, scandals and injuries aside, remains a media favorite. Norman? Whereas Lawrence was in the white thobe, casting a dramatic silhouette against the desert, Norman is the guy wearing the black hat, standing over there in the rough, just out of the spotlight he helped create and now sees dimming.

This imbroglio, presuming the Saudi coffers of blood money are loosened for 2024 and beyond, will end with the Tour running men’s professional golf – or so the Tourists believe – the well-oiled sheiks funding it in exchange for a photo opportunity in the false belief it will improve their image, and Norman, so often the failed one at a championship’s conclusion, once again out of the trophy shot. There may end up being no winners beyond the bloated wallets of the players. Messrs. Skyes and Picot would understand.

Too bad David Lean is no longer with us. It would be a hell of a movie.

– Tim Cronin