PGA against LIV – the establishment against the upstarts and McIlroy against DeChambeau – the man who cashed in on the Northern Irish star’s US Open capitulation last June.
Scheffler is a fresh contender in reminding us of his skills by winning in the Bahamas last week, while DeChambeau and 2023 US PGA Championship winner Koepka are sworn rivals who are now tied as the only players to win majors while playing under the umbrella of – LIV.
These are impressive stories and this is the first time since the Open last summer that this quartet of superstars have all been able to play in the same event.
If you wanted to pitch a game, these are the four players you’d want, that is, because professional golf is often a fractured, fragmented game. But this week’s competition is a vehicle to show that some of the biggest names have had enough of a boring and frustrating breakup.
Last week McIlroy was asked if the event would serve as a dangerous reminder that men’s golf is still a game at war. The third world number thought it was a “bad question”, but gave an interesting answer.
“We’re trying to bring these players together, and the more opportunities we get to do that, the better,” McIlroy said.
“Does it remind people that we don’t play together all the time? Yes. But at least we make an effort to try to bring the best. If we can start by doing something like this, that’s the only good thing.”
He says, in other words, the stars are taking this into their own hands to make an effective push to end the barrier. This is another example of how the power of leading players has increased while rival teams have been fighting for the future of the game.
Scheffler weighed in: “There’s a lot of talk about LIV versus the PGA Tour, it’s all about money. We want to get back to the competition. It’s nice to get together to compete.”
It’s fair to say that the PGA Tour was lukewarm about the involvement of two of its best members in competing with the LIV star team, which is still suspended from the tour by joining the Saudi Arabian sponsored league.
Importantly this match takes place in a week where no PGA Tour tournaments are in conflict. “It took a few conversations for them to get to the point where they realized this could be a good thing in the long run,” McIlroy admitted.
“Not everything went well, but we got there in the end.”
PGA Tour CEO Jay Monahan and his board continue negotiations with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) regarding the proposed acquisition of six percent of the tour’s commercial arm by PIF.
This pledge is now almost a year past its prime, but it may spell peace in golf’s so-called ‘civil war’.
If Saudi Arabia is officially invested in both sides, LIV and PGA Tour players are reunited in tournaments beyond the majors is the most likely scenario.
But until the contract is signed and approved by the US government, we have only a handful of DP World Tour events where LIV employees are welcome and this week’s ‘Showdown’ at Shadow Creek as opportunities to see together golfers from conflicting constituencies.
The players will be mic’d up, but the golf should speak because there are enough ingredients to give the competition a degree of edge that was missing in previous iterations.
The real interaction between the players will be interesting to hear. We don’t need the faux banter that can infect this type of event and hopefully the players will remember to be golfers rather than comedians.
It is not a joke to say that this is possible to look at in the future and not just because spacking comes in the form of Crypto currency. The LIV camp is already talking about the tantalizing prospect of a Ryder Cup-style game between competing tourneys.
It’s an idea that could entertain fans and possibly replace the moribund Presidents Cup held in non-Ryder years by the PGA Tour, which is contested by teams representing the US and foreign European countries and is not open to LIV golfers.
Such developments in pro golf rarely happen quickly, however. However, the fact that this week’s competition is happening at all is just the beginning.
And because of its competing loyalties, it is, perhaps, an important step toward some kind of reconciliation.
