We’ve all had that dilemma.
Someone says or does something that we agree with. If we don’t agree with it, we can certainly respect it. It’s part of being an adult. Sometimes you just have to acknowledge that you understand the other side.
With all that being said, sometimes that situation involves someone that we can’t possibly side with. We don’t respect them. We don’t like them hence a world where you might agree with them can’t exist.
That’s where some of the PGA Tour golfers are with LIV Golf.
Once the masses moved on from the “look where the money is coming”, the complete and utter outrage over LIV Golf died down. Now, it was something that was going to co-exist no different than leagues like the ABA, the original USFL, and other leagues that tried to offer competition and alternatives to the establishment.
The who being more important than the what came to a head when, none other than Tiger Woods spoke about the possibility of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf living together.
“Greg [Norman] has to go, first of all, and then, obviously, litigation against us and then our countersuit against them, those would then have to be at a stay as well,” Woods said. “Then we can talk; we can all talk freely.”
It’s no secret that there are plenty of golfers and fans who feel like Norman is using LIV Golf as he personal path of exacting revenge on the PGA Tour.
It’s put his former Tour brethren in a position to choose between taking up arms against the Tour or bashing a competitive tour that can help give them more of a player friendly deal with the PGA.
The ickiness of siding with Norman is too much for the other de facto Tour players spokesman, Rory McIlroy.
“There’s a few things that I would like to see on the LIV side that needs to happen,” McIlroy said. “I think Greg [Norman] needs to go. I think he needs to just exit stage left. Look, he’s made his mark, I think now is the right time to sort of say, ‘Look, you’ve got this thing off the ground, but no one is going to talk unless there’s an adult in the room that can actually try to mend fences.'”
Woods and McIlroy, along with others, started this venture by opposing the idea of any competing Tour. That has quickly dissipated as the PGA Tour looks for ways to provide more player-friendly benefits.
It’s funny what happens when your let free market, competitive mechanisms take flight.
But before Woods and McIlroy can get fully behind a competing tour, one more thing needs to happen. Norman has to go.
That is more important than the increased benefits because the “who” matters.
