The above statement could apply to most facets of life. Indeed, it is currently a fairly hot topic close to home but disappointment felt at such being the case is in no way directed at the protagonists from these parts. Rather, it encapsulates frustration felt that if people in places of influence had been a little bit more open to change it may not have come to where certain matters now reside.
However, all of the above is not the reason behind what follows hereafter. No, it relates to a sport where obscene sums of money are common currency.
Now, as with any sport, promotion and expansion of golf is not only understandable but necessary for those invested in affairs of tee to green. But surely for a game with such global appeal it should be to the forefront of at least having some degree of standards with regard to how their activities are financed. Not to mention the optics relating to same.
Then again, is golf in Saudi Arabia any worse than the soccer World Cup being held in Qatar? Six of one, half dozen of the other. Though the golf situation currently playing out under the LivGolf banner must surely be considered worse.
Reason being that the latter sporting code is of course an individual one. It can be spun as promoting the game every which way but loose, but in truth all it is promoting is the bank balances of the players who jumped ship from the PGA Tour.
Where things get murky – as far as I can grasp it anyway – is the USPGA suspending the players who declared for the other event. Surely as individual, professional sportsmen they should be entitled to earn their living how and where they wish?
For me at least, the issue here is not how much anybody is earning, or even through what channels the money is coming. The problem is the vile practices and human rights abuses which are commonplace in Saudi.
If sports, and particularly ones with worldwide reach, go down the ‘Hear no evil, see no evil’ route, what message does that send? To quote the late, great Brendan Grace in his role as the rambunctuous Fr Fintan Stack in Fr Ted “I’ve had my fun, and that’s all that matters”.
While we shouldn’t have been have been surprised at the lunacy of staging the World Cup in the middle of the desert given the scour and corruption which infested global football administration in the era of Platini and Blatter.
However, given golf’s penchant for being every bit as snooty as rugby at times, you’d be surprised that the Brains Trust therein – or at least those behind the LivGolf concept – wouldn’t be streetwise enough to see how bad it looks to have such a money driven sport almost flaunting itself in the face of a people besieged.
Even if that were to be taken out of the equation – though there’s no way it could or should be – do the rebels not realise the damage they are doing to their sport outside of completely undermining both the PGA and European Tours.
From another angle, the very people who would be chief badge kissers when the Ryder Cup rolls around could easily be the ones who sow the seeds of its ruination. The European Tour is putrid enough as it is but if flagship players were to go to LivGolf as well as the considerable swathe already playing on PGA Tour, where does a future Ryder Cup captain select his players, for either team. That is, if the biennial meeting of America and Europe’s 12 finest individuals manages to survive the most recent divisive issue to engulf the sport.
It hardly does the viability of either the FedEx Cup competition or the European Order of Merit any good if there is the almost inevitable player drain from each.
Money talks but sometimes it is best ignored. Those who succumb to its lure say more about themselves than anything else.
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