Karrie Webb is concerned over LIV Golf’s impact on women

Seven-time major winner and World Golf Hall of Famer Karrie Webb expressed concern about how the controversial new LIV Golf tour, which kicked off its first event on Thursday in London, will impact women’s golf.

“In the women’s game, it’s really hard because obviously you want as many women to have the opportunity to play the game,” Webb said Wednesday on Golf Channel’s “Golf Today” ahead of her appearance this week in the ShopRite LPGA Classic. “But as women I feel like we should be standing with all women. And the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, we shouldn’t be supporting that.”

The LIV Golf Invitational Series, a new eight-event series of 54-hole golf tournaments (“LIV” also is the Roman numeral for “54”) featuring 48 players – all men – playing in two-person teams and competing for whopping $25-million purses, is funded by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is controlled by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to multiple human rights organizations and intelligence services, bin Salman approved the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

Webb hopes her fellow LPGA players will take a cue from its tour’s founders, who pushed back against discrimination from the beginning. In 1967, when a Black tour member was denied lodging with the rest of the tour, the players responded: “We all stay or we all go.” Today, the term “Act like a Founder” is a guiding principle in the tour’s culture, invoking the spirit of “we all stay or we all go” as the LPGA continues to combat racism, sexism, discrimination and bias.

“Meg Mallon [18-time LPGA winner] said it the best at the beginning of the year,” added Webb. “When our founders started this tour, they refused to play at clubs