PGA’s ‘merger’ with LIV can’t be seen as anything other than a Saudi victory

The cliches have already been trotted out – a great moment for golf, a long-awaited delivery of a united front. Some would have you believe the shock announcement of peace in our time is cause for epic celebration. That the war is over, the adults in the room have won.

The reality is of course entirely different. No level of spin can alter that. The willingness of the PGA Tour, especially, and DP World Tour to forsake entrenched opposition to LIV Golf contradicts so much that has been said and done over the past two years. This serves as the latest, depressing illustration that bottomless pits of money can disrupt and distort everything in sport. And not just any bottomless pit; one emanating from a kingdom guilty of human rights abuses and which is using golf – plus football, plus anything else it can lay its hands on – as a tool to make people look the other way. Sportswashing works, kids. This chapter is to the tune of several billion dollars; chump change to the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF).

When Phil Mickelson, for so long the arch-nemesis of the PGA Tour, is revelling in an agreement then it is difficult to portray it in any other terms than a victory for LIV. Under the mainstream golf umbrella, it will be legitimised. World ranking points are sure to follow, as is broader television exposure. Donald Trump joined Mickelson in voicing his delight: that should raise a red flag for everyone involved.

It is impossible to overstate how deep-rooted earlier positions were. The PGA Tour and LIV coming together in perfect harmony is akin to Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy meeting for cocktails. Friendships have been torched, not only among golfers – see Rory McIlroy and Sergio García – but backroom staff who found