AUGUSTA, Ga. – What’s happened in men’s professional golf over the last 12 months has not happened in any other sport in history.
The fact that a full-on competitor got off the ground and took players from one circuit to another and launched in the middle of the established circuit’s season caused an unprecedented schism in this sport. The LIV Golf Tour is now in its second season. This is the first time since its launch, however, that its golfers are teeing it up alongside their former foes on the PGA Tour.
For that reason, this Masters is truly unlike any other.
The Saudi-backed circuit landed Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and reigning Open Championship winner Cam Smith as part of its new roster (Smith, of note, was the only LIV golfer to do a pre-tournament press conference; Mickelson declined an invite) along with Masters winners Bubba Watson, Patrick Reed, Charl Schwartzel and Sergio Garcia.
The PGA Tour and LIV are battling it out in the courts and in headlines. There were plenty of questions around how this week would be when the LIV golfers (there are 18 of them in the field) would be mingling with guys on the PGA Tour for the first time.
Turns out, there hasn’t been much drama at all. Everyone’s focused on the task at hand.
“I just think there's too much rubbish going on, basically (in the media),” said Smith on Monday. "For me ... I spent an hour out there and seen lots of familiar faces, lots of smiles and hugs, and it's been nice."
“They come together and share the same goal, and it’s not so much about LIV versus PGA Tour, it’s about the Masters. And I don’t think there is one individual here or a Tour (event) that could surpass that. The Masters stands alone,” said Canadian Mackenzie Hughes.
Ironically, each of the four Canadians in the field will be in a group with a LIV golfer, prompting one user on Twitter to post a photo of the Canadian United Nations peacekeepers.
“Everything's been good, man. We're still the same people,” said Brooks Koepka.
Koepka teed it up Tuesday for a practice round with Rory McIlroy, long known as the biggest voice supporting the PGA Tour establishment. He hasn't just been pro-PGA Tour, he’s been very anti-LIV.
McIlroy texted Koepka after he won the latest LIV event, which took place last week in Orlando, and the duo set up their nine-hole game easily after that.
“I think everybody forgets that we see each other in off weeks and play with each other and talk with each other,” said Koepka.
McIlroy hasn’t been able to escape questions about LIV in any media conferences in over a year, and he didn't get a pass this week. He’s seen a plenty of guys at home in South Florida, but he’s not going out of his way to connect with guys he wouldn’t normally. (In the "Full Swing" Netflix documentary, a he had particularly salty language for Phil Mickelson; McIlroy said this week he hasn’t seen Mickelson yet.)
“I think the more face time you get with some people, the more comfortable you become, in some way,” said McIlroy. “It’s a very nuanced situation and there’s different dynamics. It’s OK to get on with Brooks and (Dustin Johnson) and maybe not get on with some other guys that went to LIV, right. It’s interpersonal relationships, that’s just how it goes.
“This week and this tournament is way bigger than any of that.”
So seems to be the line of the week.
The Tuesday-night Champions Dinner had all the makings of a powder keg, with six Masters-winners-turned-LIV-golfers attending along with Gary Player – a Golf Saudi ambassador and who just recently declared the Masters the fourth of golf’s four majors – but it was cordial enough. Everyone was there to celebrate Scottie Scheffler, and that was that. The biggest news to come out of that room was how spicy the tortilla soup was.
“Last night at the Champions Dinner,” Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley said, “I would not have known that anything was going on in the world of professional golf other than the norm.”
Ridley, as chairman, is the only non-Masters winner to attend the Tuesday night affair. He did not speak about LIV specifically during the dinner, according to Golfweek. On Wednesday, though, he addressed any and all queries in his annual state of the union.
The qualification criteria for the Masters will change starting in 2024, he announced, and with golfers on the LIV Tour still not earning World Ranking points, it will become even more difficult for them to tee it up at the first major of the year.
Greg Norman, the CEO of LIV, said earlier in the week that if a LIV golfer won Sunday night, then all of the other LIV golfers in the field would be there to greet him. Smith debunked that in his media conference, but the point was made. Depending on who you ask, the us-vs.-them mood continues to bubble away.
Norman was not invited to the Masters this year, Ridley said, although over the last decade he has attended only twice, including once as a radio commentator. Ridley wanted this week to be about the competition and, reading between the lines, Norman would have been a distraction.
The LIV golfers do have something to prove this week, though. Smith admitted the competition of LIV is there, but he doesn’t “think it’s as deep” as on the PGA Tour. “He’s probably right,” said Mickelson. They play 54-hole glorified hit-and-giggles. This is a major. This is the major. And for the first time ever, there as an underlying conflict in this sport.
Come Sunday, we’ll see what side emerges with bragging rights.
