money in golf: Tiger Woods is now saying what once made Phil Mickelson persona non grata

Saudi money in golf: Tiger Woods is now saying what once made Phil Mickelson persona non grata

Wednesday afternoon, hours before his return to the PGA Tour, and uttered a line that would have lit the golf world on fire just a couple years ago.

“Ultimately,” Woods said, “we would like to have PIF be a part of our tour and a part of our product.”

“PIF” is the Public Investment Fund of , the source and driving force of golf’s current bone-deep schism.

Funny how perception can change completely in just a few short years.

Two years ago, Phil Mickelson turned the golf world upside down with his thoughts about Saudi Arabia’s regime and its potential effect on the PGA Tour.

\”They\’re scary motherto get involved with,\” Mickelson said, in what has become one of the most famous quotes in golf history. \”We know they killed [Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”

Six months later, as LIV Golf began operations, former U.S. Open winner and inaugural LIV member Graeme McDowell came under withering criticism for his answer to a question about how he could take money from a nation with documented human rights violations: \”I think we all agree, the Khashoggi situation, that was reprehensible. No one’s going to argue that.

But we’re golfers.”