AT LAST- SOME COMMON SENSE

By NEVILLE IDOUR

At last some common sense has entered the fray but first it has been a torrid few days with various players from the PGA and DP World Tours launching forth with strong and at times castigating comments and accusations against the LIV Golf players.

It has been a kind of open season with Billy Horschel slamming them as hypocrites and insisting they “go away” and “leave us alone” in a tirade before the Scottish Open. Then former European Tour player Russell Knox ( does anyone remember him beating Ryan Fox in the UK after an outrageous putt on the 18th followed by another in the playoff) who now plays mainly on the much more lucrative PGA Tour???

“He said “One good thing for the European Ryder Cup team is it has got rid of all the old boys who were hanging on for dear life. They are gone now, so good. Never to be seen again, you won’t be missed.” He also went on to laud all the major changes including the bucketloads of extra money lavished on the two tours. Of course he would, but omit to mention the changes have happened so quickly because of the LIV threat.

Fred Couples had his tuppence worth saying it was “unlikely he and Phil Mickelson will ever play together or speak with each other again. I’m not in the same boat as him anymore. “Golf Monthly has been told the relationship between former friends Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia has broken down and verbal exchanges have been bitter and personal both ways.

Graeme McDowell regrets saying anything about his reasons for joining LIV. It has produced an avalanche of nasty and threatening posts attacking his moral integrity on his Instagram or Twitter accounts. While he expected some negative responses he didn’t expect “ I can’t turn them on with out someone telling me to go die.” Might be time to hit the off switch.

Then just two days ago we had McIlroy saying “ Taking the money is fine but don’t try and come back and play over here again.” Let’s fast forward to some good news and McIlroy comes out with probably the most common sense emanating from either of the tours seemingly at war with LIV. McIlroy who is a PGA Tour Players representative has clearly been thinking more deeply about the big picture and all the various issues and ramifications involved.

He has insisted that the PGA and DP World tours hold peace talks with LIV Golf as golf is in “a messy place.” He said the time has come for this to happen and told the BBC NI “In hindsight there were probably steps that were missed that wouldn’t have made it so messy.” This was probably a dig at CEO’s Monahan and Pelley.

He also brought some perspective to the “moral” side condemning the Saudi involvement. “They sponsor so many other things. They are all over sport citing the Aramco Ladies series which has been great for golf with big prize funds. It should also be mentioned that the Asian PGA Tour will grow significantly to a 24 event season next year reaching several different parts of the globe with much increased prizemoney thanks to their sponsor LIV Golf. McILroy then added “If these people are serious about investing billions of dollars into golf that will be a good thing if it is done the right way within existing structures as I have been advocating over the last few months.” Ironically Martin Kaymer now a LIV Golf member said a few days ago the three parties needed to sit down and talk and stop the growing divide. Maybe his words had some effect on McIlroy. The golf world will be hoping that McIlroy’s plea is heeded by CEO’s Jay Monahan, Keith Pelley and Greg Norman, sanity is restored and the ugly war ends, after all we are talking about a game of golf.