The New Yorker Goes Deep on LIV Golf

Sadi backed live circuit and the PGA Tour. That piece will appear in the next edition of the magazine and was published online earlier this week under the catchy title will the Saudi's and Donald Trump Save Golf or reckon? Now? Since it's part of my job to follow golf news, I didn't really expect to learn anything new from this article,

but I actually did. Zach does some really fresh reporting here, even getting a sit down interview with Majed Alsor, who doesn't do much media and is one of liv's most important decision makers. So I thought it would be good to bring Zach on the podcast and talk about why The New Yorker got interested in live and what he, as a relative outsider to golf media, made of it.

But my understanding is that you have a background in sports reporting, so maybe you could tell me about that. What did you what did you write about previously?

Before I was in LA when I was, you know, interning at various newspapers, I covered a couple golf tournaments here and there. So I did one FedEx Cup event in New Jersey, which I think might be the only golf tournament ever interrupted by an earthquake and a tornado. There was a mini earthquake which interrupted I think Jim

Pureck's press conference and that's why I remember that. And then I did a US Open at Marion when I was an intern of the Philly inquirer, and that was my only golf experience other than playing once or twice a year myself, and that that's it.

were starting to report this story? Did you see that as kind of a strength from the get go?

It's you know, they kind of I think, you make a lot of money and they give money to charity, and you think, all of a sudden, you're like this great pillar of the community, and all you do is just hit a golf ball, and they repeat it so much that I think, if you're there every day, it just just becomes numb. But those one of the things that's like out to me. It's just kind of the self regard. And I think it was that that the fresh view helped. Also. The second thing is I I

came away. I wanted to be fair. I wanted to, you know, take the merits of examine the merits of both sides, but I also wanted to be to examine the the ways in which both sides are being ridiculous. Uh,

And when I needed to criticize. It's easier to criticize when you then don't have to cover the beat every day and you have to, you know, try to get information from people the next day, Hey can you you know what's going on with this story, and they don't want to tell you because maybe they didn't like the thing you wrote. So you feel like you could really be free to to let it rip.

tentacles out to places that I wouldn't necessarily expect. And although The New Yorker has done some fantastic golf journalism before, especially by David Owen and others, usually The New Yorker is not doing huge pieces on golf unless it's about the Masters or something like that. So what was fascinating about this story to you, and you know what made you believe that you could find something kind of new about it in reporting?

in the world. There's the geopolitics with the Saudi's, there's the identity politics, and I you know, the the culture wars that you kind of saw playing out between the tour and Live. There is the question of morality and when do you sell out and when do you not? You know, I thought that's a really interesting question. I didn't feel particularly finger waggy toward the Live guys. I kind of viewed it as I think everyone's gonna everyone's

gonna have a price. And if I was offered one hundred million dollars to go work for Live tomorrow, you know, I think anyone would have to think about it. So it was this small trivial thing that it could be amusing that touched on so many different things in amusing ways. And then also, I mean the thing that drew me in was was the Michelson quote. Initially is you just don't see people given quotes like that, you know, the scary motherfuckers. You don't see quotes like that. And then

the backlash people were very honest. It was it was like this excuse for everyone to kind of drop the facade or drop the walls a little bit and to just kind of say what they were feeling. And you don't see, especially in sports, you don't see that that often. And it was amusing and refreshing in a lot of ways. To me.

Those of us in in the golf world had been thinking about this since the emergence of the idea of the Premiere Golf League in early twenty twenty, and we were aware early on that the Saudis were involved in that, and so was February twenty twenty two with those Phil Nicholson quotes the first time that you really stood up and took notice of what was happening.

I I you know, reporting golf is a lot of reporting baseball, and that you're kind of just standing around for hours on end, and then occasionally, you know, you're standing around with people who are practicing and also kind of standing around themselves, and then you just kind of

start talking. It helped I think that, you know, being able to say you work in the New Yorker always helps people recognize it even if they don't read it, and kind of have some level of respect for it maybe or at least just think, hey, this is the thing I've heard of. So people are generally willing to talk and engage, and then it's just kind of the matter of finding smart people or funny people. Max Homa

smart and funny. Rory McIlroy's a smart guy. I'm very very well researched on this on the tour Versus Live really knows this stuff very well, so the tour is easier to report live. On the other hand, there are a lot of barriers. I didn't get credentialed for my first event in Bedminster at Trump National, so they ended up giving me a ticket for free, which saved me I think three dollars because they were selling for a

dollar on stuff up. So I just had a regular general ticket and walked around the grounds and it was very hard to talk to golfers. No one would really want to talk. They're all being kind of cagy, which I understood, but couldn't really get any interviews set up. And then I read the story in the Wall Street Journal that a lot of these guys, or maybe all of them, have clauses in their contract where they have to get interviews approved by the Live mothership, so to speak.

So the tour was very easy. The tour was, you know, the usual kind of American sports model. It's like, you know, we're open, go go talk to who you want to talk to, and Live was very much, you know, kind of top down controlled. No.

but you know, that's an understandable choice. And then there's the people who who feel and I think that there's it's they will never say this, but it's a mix of people who are maybe jealous or a mix of people who maybe feel spurned or wanted the deal or still chasing a deal and having a tough time, who are more of the hardliners who are really kind of pissed off about this. So I think there's there's there's

kind of those two camps. The one people who are like, you know, I don't like the way a lot of people have gone about it. I don't like you suing us even there's the other people who are like, these people are horrible and uh and I hate them.

this is affecting his tour, which he really likes. I found, and it's it's hard to tell, but I found that he was one of the people who and probably he would I think you would admit this, probably because he has a lot of money to begin with, and he has a lot of sponsorships, and he's spending a lot of money on the tour. He is less motivated by money than I think a lot of people. And I think he really does genuinely love the tour and this is what he dreamed of, and he wants to protect

the thing that he dreamed of. And there are a few people like that. A lot of people are just motivated simp by the money or by resentment. But so I think he resents in a way that they're messing up his tour. But I don't think that he really

hates a lot of the people that went. But one of the things that he told me this didn't make it in the THEECE is we're talking about how this thing might end, and he was like, there has to be some sort of punishment to people who come back, otherwise, you know, if live folds or some people want to defect back. He feels like everyone could have just gone. He could have just gone and got it in, you know, one hundred something million dollars and then come back with

no punishment. He still feels like, you know, there's got to be some sort of you know, penance paid by these golf guys. So I think there's a little bit of a mix like it's it's it's it's personal for him, even if I think he understands on an intellectual level that you know, these guys are allowed to go get money and that's fine.

So you went to Trump Bedminster, so you were not credentialed at this event. The New Yorker sent in a credential application and was rejected by by liv Golf. Do I have that? Do I have that right?

the end. But what was your experience like at Bedminster?

There was also a mix of like kind of curious bro types. The way I described this to friends is the guys that kind of you know, they wear there the like the flat brim HAPs like kind of on a tilt, like on their forehead and kind of like rest on top of their forehead. I kind of connected to to the lax bros that I grew up with. I grew up not far away, so I kind of understood the archetype, and that was not I was myself was not too far off from the archetype at some

points in my life. But it was like, you know, it was I think it was like the curious bro types and then like the hardcore maga people. There were a lot of jokes about Hillary, a lot of jokes about Biden, a lot of let's go Brandon chance, and then Trump himself gave a speech. He as the players were coming through the sixteen tee box, which is this

par three right by the clubhouse. He just got a microphone and started giving a little speech and then had a guy saying God bless America as the golfers were like continuing to play. So it was it was almost like people forgot that there was golf going on, and people just kind of flocked to this area where Trump was with Tucker Carlson and with Marjorie Taylor Green and that whole cast of characters. People just flock to just go see them.

doesn't map on perfectly. You know, the PGA Tour is not woke, as much as people want to portray it as that in opposition to Live Golf's sort of resistance, but there is something like that there there is something political about this conflict, and I was wondering if you ever got to a point where you could explain that to yourself. You know, what, how does this whole thing intersect with the culture wars?

like the white working class in some ways. And the people who more strongly associated I think with those groups also tended to be more Trump Republicans rather the mainline Republicans. They tended to go to live. Now. That's that's the golfers, and I also think that's that's the view. I think the kind of the distrust of elites is is how I would classify the like main appeal. If you know, if you distrust the elites, the PGA tour is like

represents the elites in a lot of ways. And the people I met, even the fans who kind of had that suspicion or presentment toward the elites flocked toward live more. Not that there are a ton of live fans, but you'd meet people who were pro live these tournaments, and the PGA is more for like the Mitt Romney kind of mainline Republicans. There are not a lot of Democrats.

I'm kind of leaving them out of this conversation. There are not a lot of Democrats on the tour, and I think there's some people that view it and you know, those people have are a little bit more principled and and think that somethings are more important than money. There's other people that say they grew up wealthier and so have the privilege and have the wherewithal of be able to say, oh, I don't need this money. I could stick with my principals as I have plenty of money already.

So I think that's kind of how it broke down. Elizabeth Nelson, who's a golf rider. Sure it's for the ringer.

Mitch McConnell. That you know, we're fine with the lead of elitist, destructive behavior as long as we're able to do it, but the minute it starts being bad for business is the minute we say, whoahoa wo, we don't we don't love this.

obviously Donald Trump himself has found it appealing. And you know, one question that's often been on my mind, aside from again the absurdity and the ridiculousness of this whole thing is that I wonder what this how this will play out as a strategic choice for Live, if associating itself with Trump and Marjorie Taylor Green and Tucker Carlson at this particular event, but also for other events and kind of in general, whether that's going to be a good

strategic choice for Live or whether you think maybe Live has kind of painted itself into a corner here.

I think on the flip side, there's also this model that we've seen a lot in media with podcasters on the right and media figures on the right, where it's fine to turn off half the country, and in fact that's actually to your advantage because it activates the other half. Of the country, and people that might not watch golf at all might now watch you because they associate you with Trump and they like Trump. So I could see

it going both ways. I do think that Live was a little bit surprised by how politicized the event was, So I don't know that this is a I don't know that it's an intentional strategy. I just got the sense that they thought it was going to be a little bit more about the golf and less about Trump than it was, which is crazy because this is what Trump does. He becomes the center of attention, and that's his main skill and talent is kind of drawing all

the attention to himself. So if they were caught off guard, I think that was a miscalculation.

look around for other options for leaders who might be somewhat less willing to fight in public right and somewhat more under control and disciplined than Greg Norman has traditionally been. And so I wonder whether Live is going to try to kind of smooth out its public stance a little bit and be somewhat less bellicos in the future.

you know, it varies day to day. If he's angry about something, he's going to be angry about something, And I don't know that there's a deeper strategy behind that, And if there is, it certainly doesn't seem to be working because it's hard to tell even what the strategy is because it shifts a lot in terms of we're trying to play nice and the PJ Tour is blackballing us, but we're still trying to engage with them, and now they're horrible and resuing them and it's you know, it

seems to be kind of all over the place. I don't have any reporting on Norman's status within Live, but it wouldn't surprise me if the strategy from the Saudi executives from the outset was Norman is a polarizing figure and we need someone who's kind of not afraid to take on the establishment and also take a lot of

the bullets, as Norman has done. He's been the face of this even though he is he's the CEO, but he still is answering to in particular Magi Alsa and Yaser al Rumayan, who are the two Saudi executives that are kind of this is their remit and they are certainly part of the decision making here. But you just hear like this is Norman's grand plan, when really he

was just hired on his CEO. So I think if there was a strategy there, it may have been to hire someone who's a little bit more bellicose like Norman, and then as it establishes itself and as you get through the turbulent early year or two you might turn to someone who's a little bit more of a stable, more traditional CEO type.

of the Saudi Golf Federation. So first of all, I mean a lot of listeners might not be familiar with Alsore or how powerful he is, how important he is, So could you just set up what his role is and how he's connected to other powerful people associated with.

So he's the one ultimately who's you know, the buck stops. They are essentially at Rumyan in terms of of Live. He's not running all the day to day stuff because he's got a big remit. He's also the chairman of a Ramco, which I think is still the biggest company in the world. But he's he's the first big name is Yaser al Rumayan. Now he appointed or under his tenure a high school friend of his name Magid al Soorar, who's a former soccer player turned businessman. He lives in

the US. He was a point of the head of the Saudi golf Federations, so he's in charge of the sport essentially within the country. That means investments in new golf courses and they're building tons of golf courses. Uh. And he also was the one who had been looking for investments like Live. So really those are the two main players. Is al soor who I talked to, and

Yasser al Roumayan, who is his boss. He refers to him as the boss and those are the two main players here, so there's kind of three, you know, two degrees of separation between Soro to Ramon to n b.

needs to get in any moment. He carried a clipboard around to kind of seem officials so he could just go wherever he wanted and was helping out in a volunteer capacity. I had been with him. I think this was on the second round. The morning of the second round, and there's me and a couple of people hanging around, and he said, oh, I'll be right back there. Someone I want to introduce you guys to, and he brought

over Magid. And one of the first things Magic said to us is, you know, they I'm the guy that they called this scary motherfucker, kind of in the tone of like, can you believe that? Because you know, even you talk to a person, it's just a person. He's a you know, pretty nice, friendly guy when you interact with him. So he said, you know, can you believe this?

They called me a scary motherfucker? And we started walking up the first the first hole together, and I introduced who I was, I said, him with the New Yorker. I said, I would have been wanting to talk to you or or or he refers to his excellency has been wanting to talk to you or his excellency for a long time, and you know, I would love to ask you about live and he he said, you know,

he said, okay. We started talking and we walked a couple holes together and ended up going to one of the private suites with him and talking with him for some length or talking with him at some length. So it was we just kind of met him more impromptu, uh, and and ended up speaking for a while.

kind of at that language. He kind of views himself as a businessman in the business world, and and that's how he frames a lot of his conversations.

One of the things that he said was, if the majors decide not to have our players play, I will celebrate. I will create my own majors for my players. So when he said this, was he being like really genuine or do you think this would sort of a pose?

above all. But he also was when we were speaking about this, was viewing it kind of from a businessman sense, and he was also gaming out, you know, if I were the tour and I was a commissioner, here's how I would handle the majors. Because the tour doesn't get any revenue from the majors, yet all the players are the ones that are playing in the majors, So he was kind of gaming this out from a business perspective, and the Saudi's are the Wealth Fund is they're very

long term investors. So I think if had anyone else made that statement, people would have said, Okay, sure, yeah, you're going to create your own major. Now you're not.

You kind of have to take with at least a little bit of seriousness the idea coming from people who associated with the Wealth Fund because they their time horizons are very long and they have enough capital too if they wanted to start to create events running opposite the majors that they're calling their own majors, and they understand that wouldn't have the same cachet, at least in the

short term. But I think they think in the long term, if we get the best players, then our events aren't going to become de facto majors because we have the best players playing them.

seems like this is damage control. But I thought i'd mention it because I didn't get a chance to ask Zach about it. If this statement had come out before the podcast, I certainly would have brought it up. Just wanted to put that out there, all right, that's it, absolutely. I mean, I think that one thing that people who are in the traditional golf world have a hard time doing is imagining a world five years from now or ten years from now when Live might very well have

most of the best golfers in the world. And you know, right now they have a lot of really great golfers, but some of them are a bit over the hill, and they don't have some of the key players on the PGA Tour who are really in form right now. But that might not be the case in five to

ten years. And so how does everything change then if Live really kind of owns most of the best male professional golfers in the world, you know, if they create their own majors and the players have to play in those, then my goodness, that that would be something pretty significant, right.

but this is not a major strategic enterprise for the Saudis. Generally, the people within the Saudi government who are making other financial decisions know about this, but to them it's kind of a small thing. The wealth Fund right now has more than six hundred billion dollars in assets and they're hoping to grow it into the trillions very soon. So

two billion dollars is not a huge amount. And if they're going to have to pay one hundred and fifty to two hundred million dollars or more to get the top players, I just think that becomes so expensive that they might not even want to pay it. Now if they do get the top players, You're right. I think the people within the tour view this as kind of an existential battle. If you talk to Davis Love, he'll

tell you that LIVE says it wants to coexist. But really, if they get the top players, then that kind of turns the tour into just a minor league feeder system that Okay, you've developed some good talent and now we're going to pay him and pick them off. So they do kind of view this as you know, this is life or death. That if LIV does get the top players, and I think they realize that the tour as as we know it kind of ceases to exist.

off on it. But if it was so easy to kind of form this under the umbrella of the public Investment Fund. Then surely it would also be easy just to dissolve it. And so that's that's a looming possibility here as well, and perhaps the fantasy outcome for PGA tour people. Now, I want to get to this strategic, this political question of sports washing. You've already said that

you're skeptical of this. You quote a couple of very serious experts in your article, including David Schanker, the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and Joseph Westfall, US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia formerly both both are former positions, the ones that I mentioned, and they too are you know, think that sports washing, that term doesn't really represent what

Saudi Arabia is doing here. So why don't you tell me why you're suspicious of that interpretation and what you think is really going on here.

are more efficient ways to do it. And as a result of live people are talking more about show Kei and about even Saudi Arabia's role in nine to eleven, which they weren't talking about at all before. So I think if you were looking at as kind of a reputational game, it wouldn't it wouldn't be worth anything right now. But certainly there are more effective ways to improve one's

reputation if you wanted to. But if if you talk to people who are more insidery, people who communicate with Nebs, they'll tell you that he and the royal family generally has kind of given up on trying to improve their reputation personally, that they they've realized that the West is never going to love them for a number of reasons, and they are just not so naive that they could fix their reputation in any shorter, medium term length of time.

And now what I what I what what people like Shanker and others will tell you is is that the Saudis right now are are kind of in this rivalry with the Emiordes and with Dubai. Saudi Arabia is trying very rapidly to diversify their economy. They've for a long time been very reliant on oil, almost totally reliant on oil revenues, and realize that the days of relying on oil revenues are numbered. So they are very rapidly trying to diversify and modernize their economy, and they're trying to

develop all these new sectors. One of the things nbs IS is very uh pays a lot of attention to is the fact that a lot of young, wealthy Saudis end up leaving the country if they want to go on vacation, if they want to get medical care, if they want certain jobs. Western tourists when they come to the Middle East, or Western businessmen when they come to the Middle East they go to places like Dubai. They don't come to Saudi Arabia. So they're trying to develop

Saudi business and they're trying to develop Saudi tourism. And one of the big groups of people that they want to attract is wealthy Westerners. And one thing that they know appeals to wealthy Westerners is golf. So it's kind of you know, there's the question of what is sports watching and what's not but I don't view this as

a reputation laundering game for MBS. I view this as kind of like an advertising marketing vehicle for Saudi Arabia to say, hey, you don't think of us as a golf destination because we're mostly desert, we're very weater, scarce, and there's traditionally not a lot to do in the country.

But actually we're pumping a lot of money into the golf sector and people start associating Saudi Arabia with golf, and that, I think, from a strategic aim is what Saudi Arabia is after is they're trying to position themselves as a place to do business, to visit, and this serves to reinforce that point. I also think and a lot of people discount this. I also think that they do view this as a legitimate business. I think they wouldn't be spending two billion dollars if they didn't think

that they could make some sort of money. And their time horizons are a lot longer than most, so they are okay with losing money in the short term. But I do think that they believe that they can turn this into a legitimate business. They think they could sell off these franchises for hundreds of billion, hundreds of millions of dollars or maybe even a billion dollars each for their twelve franchises, and that's how they're going to recoup

their money. If you talk to people were involved in the Premier Golf League deals and talks, they are highly skeptical of this. They just think the Saudis are spending way too much money and more money, and they don't have enough money coming in to recoup their investment. But I do think that it shouldn't be discounted that the Saudis you believe that they can turn this into a profitable business.

for these franchises. But right now, you know, sports franchises are lucrative because they have lots of money and TV deals. The NFL attracts so many people and they have so much TV revenue, and that's really the reason why NFL franchises are worth so much. There are on YouTube, like you know, not many thousands of people watching these live

golf events right now. So if something needs to change drastically, I think in terms of the revenue they're bringing in to actually become a viable business, and I think that's unlikely.

think they're going to be worth. Because you know, just imagine like there's a eventually, maybe a Team Japan or a Team South Korea that's backed by some massive business in one of those countries that could potentially be very valuable. But there do seem to be quite a few smart people who are skeptical, skeptical that that could ever come about.

But I want to return for a moment to the sportswa washing question, because what you described about the Saudi rivalry with the UAE and the intention to turn Saudi Arabia into a destination, including a golf destination for wealthy Westerners, that for me, aligns with what I've always understood sportswashing partially to be. And you know, maybe this ultimately boils down to an uninteresting issue of semantics. What do we call sports washing and what do we not call sports washing?

But I think that trying to portray a nation to the world in a different way is a kind of marketing tactic and does involve some sort of reputation laundering, even if that marketing isn't necessarily targeted at everyone, It's targeted towards someone, in this case, toward wealthy Westerners who are interested in golf and might be, you know, willing to see Saudi Arabia as a place that they could

potentially go and spend money. I think of that as being sort of what most people have described sportswa washing to be. To me, where do you do you see an important distinction between what, say, you know, Joseph Westfall was describing as sports washing, and he sort of rejected the idea. I think that idea is ridiculous what he

thinks of as sportswa washing. Do you think there's an important distin distinction between that and this kind of you know, marketing tactic to turn Saudi Arabia into a golf destination.

is this is sportswashing of a more familiar type. That you are taking something or some people with a reputation that is one thing, and you are using this sport of golf to turn it into something else. I think that there is a fine you know there there are kind of a spectrum of this, and one end there's just you know, regular marketing, and one end there's you know, the sportswashing is just for laundering the reputation of a despot or a leader of a country or whatever it

might be. But I think you could make the case that golf generally and the Tour has engaged in things like this. There are a lot of golfers that are unseemly or do unseemly things, even kind of the icons that that everyone worships, like Jack Nicholas has dodgy parts of his past, He's made some racist statements, and yet the Tour has been very good at using the game of golf and its association with things like character and integrity and charity to turn these men who are imperfect

and just human. You know. It's I don't think that they're any worse than than you or I or anyone else, but turning them from flawed humans into these like paragons of character and integrity and like the gentleman that everyone should aspire to and and and because of that, making them ideal vessels to sell, like role X's and things

like that. So I think that you could you could make the case that a lot lots of things are sportswashing, and that maybe a lot of you know, what golf does from the business side is been sportswa washing all along. I do think that there is is a it's it's maybe a subtle distinction, but an important distinction between laundering

say NBS's reputation and MBS. You could point to a lot of actions of his that are really horrible and laundering the reputation of even a country that he runs, because that is, you know, it is going to have a pause of effect on a lot of people if if you know, there is a thriving economy and lots of opportunities for men and women. I think that there's an important dissinction to be made there. And also I think that laundering the reputation of just one person kind

of strikes a lot of people. It's just like this is a vanity project that's pointless, you know, it's it's just for this person's ego, Whereas you know, kind of a broader economic thing can have positive effects on a broader set of people.

way that these people can redeem themselves is to become more like us. That there's something icky about that, but it is a line that many people have used to support what Live is doing, including Graham McDowell, who made a comment of this sort in London. And so what do you make of that argument that this, you know, could be something that does a service to Saudi Arabia and to the rest of the world. Is that as much bullshit as the gentleman narrative on the PGA tour is.

Putin and they just wouldn't answer it. You could just say no, it's never going to become a real choice, you know, you could just say no. And and Graham McDowell, who could talk about in one breath the murder of a journalist and the brutal murder of a journalist and then say, but you know, if the Saudis want to use golf and help them to improve themselves, great, I'm happy to be proud to do that. I was just kind of a gast and and amused in a way by the the just how poorly they answered some of

these questions. I think a small scale, you could you could make the argument that golf has been good for regular Saudis. They have women who who who play at the Saudi stops on the tour, on their tour talk about it really positively. They're treated very well. They're they're trying to get Saudi women into the game. But I think on a grander scale, whether or not live golf existed ever or you know, or didn't, it's not going to make that big of a difference on the lives

of any everyday Saudis. It's it's really I think it's this is kind of a symptom of the general kind of self importance that a lot of golfers seem to have imbibed, or as most throughout the years, it's it's just golf, you know. It's it's really not going to make that big of a difference. And I think it's okay to say, you know, your interest in this is because they're paying you a lot of money, and that's understandable.

People work for money, and I think people would would identify with that a little bit more and saying, you know, we're doing this to change the world because it's golf. It's it's really not going to change the world, all right.

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