As action-packed as the competitive golf world was in 2022, there was at least as much drama and excitement in the business segment of the sport.
The big story in that realm, of course, was LIV Golf and the assault that Saudi-backed enterprise made on the PGA and DP World tours, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars from the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund into the professional game in an effort to lure players to join a league organized around no-cut, 54-hole tournaments. CEO Greg Norman led that campaign on behalf of the sheiks, and he enticed a number of notables – Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith, Patrick Reed and Sergio García among them – to come on board.
Not surprisingly, members of golf’s status quo were none too happy with those defections and the criticisms many of the new LIV golfers leveled against the established tours as they also boasted about the freedom and financial security provided by the new endeavor. The animus that arose gave the game the rather unattractive aura of a pri...