Henrik Stenson leads LIV event but Donald Trump circus steals limelight

It didn’t take long for the barely veiled political undertones surrounding the LIV Golf tournament at Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf club to burst to the fore on Saturday afternoon.

The several hundred spectators filling the grandstand behind the first tee erupted into rollicking chants of “Four more years!” that resounded across the grounds when the former US president emerged in a white polo shirt and red Make America Great Again cap to watch the leading group of Henrik Stenson, Patrick Reed and Phachara Khongwatmai begin their second rounds after the horn sent off the shotgun start at quarter past one.

Several feet away Greg Norman, the CEO and face of the controversial Saudi-financed breakaway tour, raised the roof with a sheepish grin, embracing the rollicking atmosphere even as it was deftly avoided by the official broadcast, which streamed on YouTube to around 70,000 viewers in the absence of a TV deal. And that was before a surprise appearance by Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Republican congresswoman and self-avowed Christian Nationalist from Georgia.

If day one was a Diet Maga rally, this was Maga Classic. The crowds for Saturday’s second round of the 54-hole, no-cut tournament were slightly larger and certainly louder than Friday’s opening session, when no more than 2,000 spectators descended on the 500-acre grounds of Trump National in this central New Jersey farm town 45 miles west of New York City. The previously deserted grandstands and grassy knolls along the fairways were peppered with fans as the $25m tournament’s middle act played out beneath pristine blue skies and comfortable 88F (31C) temperatures.

Stenson, the joint overnight leader fresh off his removal as Europe’s Ryder Cup captain last