Keith Pelley, the DP World Tour chief executive, had every right to be celebratory and, after all the abuse he received, even vengeful when the result of the arbitration was made official on Thursday, but he offered the Ryder Cup legends a way back, so long as they paid the fines, served the suspensions and ate some humble pie. However, will they want to and more to the point, will LIV allow them to scrape and beg?
Off the course, LIV is in a precarious position. Not only did the UK verdict go against them but on Friday, a Californian judge turned down an LIV appeal and declared that the Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, as well as its governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan – the chairman of Newcastle United – are both subject to discovery and depositions.
There is not a chance that the Saudis will open their books for public consumption, so they will likely stall it as long as possible and then ditch the anti-trust suit. That means its players will be banned from the PGA Tour and, very probably the DP World Tour as well. The majors must figure how that will affect their fields.
“We’re still the same people. So I mean, I know if I’m healthy, I know I can compete,” Koepka said. “I don’t think any of the guys that played this event thought otherwise, either. When Phil plays good, we know he’s going to compete. P-Reed, the same thing. It’s just manufactured by the media that we can’t compete anymore, that we are washed up.”
In truth, the media are the least of golf’s ever-escalating issue. The major season has only just got started and, so for that matter, has Mickelson who, after LIV Adelaide next week, will return to the US PGA, the major that he won as a record-breaking 50-year-old two years ago, before skipping it under the LIV cloud last year.
“I warned you all I was about to go on a tear,” Mickelson said, after his extraordinary final-round 65, which defied, form, age and certainly expectation. “The next few months are going to be fun.”
