Golf establishment left tottering after rebel circuit's latest landgrab

There were not literally tanks parked on the lawns of Centurion Club in Hertfordshire on Wednesday, but they might as well have been. 

The fleet of black London cabs, emblazoned in LIV Golf logos, which stood massed in the club car park all day were like metaphorical armoured vehicles; ready to transport the 48 footsoldiers of the inaugural LIV Golf series event to their starting tee boxes on Thursday, all the while firing petrodollars at the crumbling defences of the sport’s traditional powerbase. 

Make no mistake, Wednesday represented the biggest landgrab yet in golf’s power struggle. A day to make the top brass at the PGA Tour and DP World Tour shiver.

There was a time, earlier this year, when the sport’s traditional tours thought they might have seen off the putative threat of the Saudi-funded LIV Golf Series.

After PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan made it clear that anyone who signed up to the series would have their Tour membership revoked, it looked for a while as if Greg Norman’s breakaway league might be dead in the water. Sure, there were a few early defectors, but they were largely written off as has-beens or never-will-bes.

No one can claim that anymore. An extraordinary day that began with six-time major champion Phil Mickelson explaining why he was “so happy” to pledge his future to LIV Golf despite describing the Saudis as “scary mother-------” only a few months ago (albeit useful as leverage in his efforts to extract more money out of the PGA Tour), that took in a toe-curling press conference with British duo Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter in which they were grilled on human rights, ended with a Telegraph Sport exclusive that Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed were also signing with the Saudis.

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