Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 2: In a brid Egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg, Frida Egg Egg, Frida Egg Bride Egg Lie,
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off of the hump. Welcome
Speaker 2: to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today
Speaker 2: we're talking about what happens when The New Yorker magazine
Speaker 2: does a deep dive on live golf. My guest today
Speaker 2: is Zach Helfand, who's a writer and editor at The
Speaker 2: New Yorker and for the past few months he's been
Speaker 2: reporting a big feature story on the conflict between the
Speaker 2: Sadi backed live circuit and the PGA Tour. That piece
Speaker 2: will appear in the next edition of the magazine and
Speaker 2: was published online earlier this week under the catchy title
Speaker 2: will the Saudi's and Donald Trump Save Golf or reckon? Now?
Speaker 2: Since it's part of my job to follow golf news,
Speaker 2: I didn't really expect to learn anything new from this article,
Speaker 2: but I actually did. Zach does some really fresh reporting here,
Speaker 2: even getting a sit down interview with Majed Alsor, who
Speaker 2: doesn't do much media and is one of liv's most
Speaker 2: important decision makers. So I thought it would be good
Speaker 2: to bring Zach on the podcast and talk about why
Speaker 2: The New Yorker got interested in live and what he,
Speaker 2: as a relative outsider to golf media, made of it.
Speaker 1: All.
Speaker 2: To keep up with the Frida Egg, including our commentary
Speaker 2: on the Battle for professional Golf, you can subscribe to
Speaker 2: our newsletter at the fridagg dot com. So, Zach, you
Speaker 2: are the editor of the New Yorkers Talk of the
Speaker 2: Town section, right, Is that kind of what you're mainly
Speaker 2: doing at the magazine right now?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So I'm one of the editors. So it's me,
Speaker 1: me and my boss, Susan. That's my day job.
Speaker 2: I ed to Talk in the Town and it's the
Speaker 2: it's the section of short pieces that appears toward the
Speaker 2: front of the magazine. I think people who've seen The
Speaker 2: New Yorker will be familiar with it. Often very charming,
Speaker 2: sometimes a little hard to figure out, and that's that's
Speaker 2: part of the mystery and a lure of them. So
Speaker 2: you are not a golf reporter. I just want to
Speaker 2: make that very clear. That's not your full time job.
Speaker 2: But you became a golf reporter to do this article.
Speaker 2: But my understanding is that you have a background in
Speaker 2: sports reporting, so maybe you could tell me about that.
Speaker 2: What did you what did you write about previously?
Speaker 1: I have been a temporary golf reporter on a few occasions.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely not a full time golf reporter, and I
Speaker 1: think that it was to my advantage. You get kind
Speaker 1: of the aliens view of the world that I think
Speaker 1: people seem to have enjoyed. My first job was at
Speaker 1: the La Times. I was a sports reporter there, mainly
Speaker 1: USC and UCLA football basketball, a little bit of Dodgers
Speaker 1: and a little bit of this and that here and there.
Speaker 1: Before I was in LA when I was, you know,
Speaker 1: interning at various newspapers, I covered a couple golf tournaments
Speaker 1: here and there. So I did one FedEx Cup event
Speaker 1: in New Jersey, which I think might be the only
Speaker 1: golf tournament ever interrupted by an earthquake and a tornado.
Speaker 1: There was a mini earthquake which interrupted I think Jim
Speaker 1: Pureck's press conference and that's why I remember that. And
Speaker 1: then I did a US Open at Marion when I
Speaker 1: was an intern of the Philly inquirer, and that was
Speaker 1: my only golf experience other than playing once or twice
Speaker 1: a year myself, and that that's it.
Speaker 2: So the justin rose us open is what you covered
Speaker 2: when you were at the Philly Enchoir exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I was mainly the gopher, just getting quotes
Speaker 1: and running them back to the actual reporters.
Speaker 2: Well, so I wanted to establish that because you know,
Speaker 2: although you have covered some golf tournaments, although you certainly
Speaker 2: know enough to have reported this story, you do come
Speaker 2: into it as something of an outsider, which, as you
Speaker 2: alluded to, can be really really useful with a subject
Speaker 2: like this that golf reporters live every single day and
Speaker 2: kind of may end up taking a too narrow a
Speaker 2: view of and so it's really useful to come in
Speaker 2: from the outside. Did did you find that as you
Speaker 2: were starting to report this story? Did you see that
Speaker 2: as kind of a strength from the get go?
Speaker 1: I think it helped me in two ways, the first
Speaker 1: being this fresh view of it. There are things that
Speaker 1: if you're a golf reporter there just covering the beat,
Speaker 1: you probably get numb too. There are things that amused me,
Speaker 1: things that people would say. Just one of the things
Speaker 1: is just kind of the self regard that golfers have.
Speaker 1: It's you know, they kind of I think, you make
Speaker 1: a lot of money and they give money to charity,
Speaker 1: and you think, all of a sudden, you're like this
Speaker 1: great pillar of the community, and all you do is
Speaker 1: just hit a golf ball, and they repeat it so
Speaker 1: much that I think, if you're there every day, it
Speaker 1: just just becomes numb. But those one of the things
Speaker 1: that's like out to me. It's just kind of the
Speaker 1: self regard. And I think it was that that the
Speaker 1: fresh view helped. Also. The second thing is I I
Speaker 1: came away. I wanted to be fair. I wanted to,
Speaker 1: you know, take the merits of examine the merits of
Speaker 1: both sides, but I also wanted to be to examine
Speaker 1: the the ways in which both sides are being ridiculous. Uh,
Speaker 1: And when I needed to criticize. It's easier to criticize
Speaker 1: when you then don't have to cover the beat every
Speaker 1: day and you have to, you know, try to get
Speaker 1: information from people the next day, Hey can you you
Speaker 1: know what's going on with this story, and they don't
Speaker 1: want to tell you because maybe they didn't like the
Speaker 1: thing you wrote. So you feel like you could really
Speaker 1: be free to to let it rip.
Speaker 2: So in other words, you're you're not as worried about
Speaker 2: burning sources when you're when you're just kind of dropping
Speaker 2: in and writing one feature piece.
Speaker 1: Exactly. If if if they told me, you know, you'll
Speaker 1: never write another golf story in your life, I'd say,
Speaker 1: all right, well that's that's that's okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, so I wanted to get an idea of
Speaker 2: what made you interested and what made The New Yorker
Speaker 2: interested in this story in particular. You know, as somebody
Speaker 2: who's in the golf world every day, I find myself
Speaker 2: a little bit amused by the interest in live. You know,
Speaker 2: I get asked about it at parties now, you know,
Speaker 2: just like people as soon as they hear that I
Speaker 2: work in golf, they're going to ask me about live.
Speaker 2: And so this story really has kind of spread its
Speaker 2: tentacles out to places that I wouldn't necessarily expect. And
Speaker 2: although The New Yorker has done some fantastic golf journalism before,
Speaker 2: especially by David Owen and others, usually The New Yorker
Speaker 2: is not doing huge pieces on golf unless it's about
Speaker 2: the Masters or something like that. So what was fascinating
Speaker 2: about this story to you, and you know what made
Speaker 2: you believe that you could find something kind of new
Speaker 2: about it in reporting?
Speaker 1: To me, it was this relatively unimportant thing. It's a
Speaker 1: relatively trivial thing. At the end of the day, it's
Speaker 1: just golf. We like it, I like I like watching
Speaker 1: and I want it to be a good product to watch.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, there are more
Speaker 1: important things going on in the world. So it was
Speaker 1: this relatively trivial thing that just touched on so many different,
Speaker 1: maybe more important or more extension existential problems or issues
Speaker 1: in the world. There's the geopolitics with the Saudi's, there's
Speaker 1: the identity politics, and I you know, the the culture
Speaker 1: wars that you kind of saw playing out between the
Speaker 1: tour and Live. There is the question of morality and
Speaker 1: when do you sell out and when do you not?
Speaker 1: You know, I thought that's a really interesting question. I
Speaker 1: didn't feel particularly finger waggy toward the Live guys. I
Speaker 1: kind of viewed it as I think everyone's gonna everyone's
Speaker 1: gonna have a price. And if I was offered one
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars to go work for Live tomorrow, you know,
Speaker 1: I think anyone would have to think about it. So
Speaker 1: it was this small trivial thing that it could be
Speaker 1: amusing that touched on so many different things in amusing ways.
Speaker 1: And then also, I mean the thing that drew me
Speaker 1: in was was the Michelson quote. Initially is you just
Speaker 1: don't see people given quotes like that, you know, the
Speaker 1: scary motherfuckers. You don't see quotes like that. And then
Speaker 1: the backlash people were very honest. It was it was
Speaker 1: like this excuse for everyone to kind of drop the
Speaker 1: facade or drop the walls a little bit and to
Speaker 1: just kind of say what they were feeling. And you
Speaker 1: don't see, especially in sports, you don't see that that often.
Speaker 1: And it was amusing and refreshing in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: To me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was bizarre, is what it was. I couldn't
Speaker 2: quite believe my eyes when that article by Alan Schipnook
Speaker 2: with those quotes from Phil Nicholson came out in February.
Speaker 2: Was that the first time that you had heard about live.
Speaker 2: Those of us in in the golf world had been
Speaker 2: thinking about this since the emergence of the idea of
Speaker 2: the Premiere Golf League in early twenty twenty, and we
Speaker 2: were aware early on that the Saudis were involved in that,
Speaker 2: and so was February twenty twenty two with those Phil
Speaker 2: Nicholson quotes the first time that you really stood up
Speaker 2: and took notice of what was happening.
Speaker 1: More or less. Yeah, I think I had heard the
Speaker 1: term like Saudi Golf League or whatever they were calling
Speaker 1: it in different.
Speaker 2: Areas league SGL.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, SGL. I think that had crossed like my
Speaker 1: Twitter feed or you know, i'd heard it on a
Speaker 1: sports talk radio or something like that. But hadn't it
Speaker 1: just kind of had rolled off because there's nothing to
Speaker 1: grab onto, at least for me. I didn't. It didn't didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, affect me all that much. But the Mickelson
Speaker 1: quote and that article from Shipnok was the first time
Speaker 1: that I had really not only like passively consumed it,
Speaker 1: but like actively was like, huh, what is what is
Speaker 1: this thing?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I think I think you're You're with a
Speaker 2: lot of people there. But then by August you find
Speaker 2: yourself at the Tour Championship, the final event of the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour season. Tell me what it was like reporting
Speaker 2: at that event. You got some really good quotes from
Speaker 2: like Roy McElroy Max Homa and so clearly you were
Speaker 2: well prepared to operate in that environment. But what did
Speaker 2: you find surprising or notable or any anything else about
Speaker 2: being at that event and observing.
Speaker 1: I have to say the tour is a very pleasant
Speaker 1: place to report. You've got the media ten, you've got
Speaker 1: food all ready for you. You know, in some cases
Speaker 1: there's like beers in the fridge, which is unusual for
Speaker 1: for covering sports and covering anything really, and then you're
Speaker 1: out on this nice golf course and people are generally
Speaker 1: friendly and they're helpful. So it was it was nice.
Speaker 1: I I you know, reporting golf is a lot of
Speaker 1: reporting baseball, and that you're kind of just standing around
Speaker 1: for hours on end, and then occasionally, you know, you're
Speaker 1: standing around with people who are practicing and also kind
Speaker 1: of standing around themselves, and then you just kind of
Speaker 1: start talking. It helped I think that, you know, being
Speaker 1: able to say you work in the New Yorker always
Speaker 1: helps people recognize it even if they don't read it,
Speaker 1: and kind of have some level of respect for it
Speaker 1: maybe or at least just think, hey, this is the
Speaker 1: thing I've heard of. So people are generally willing to
Speaker 1: talk and engage, and then it's just kind of the
Speaker 1: matter of finding smart people or funny people. Max Homa
Speaker 1: smart and funny. Rory McIlroy's a smart guy. I'm very
Speaker 1: very well researched on this on the tour Versus Live
Speaker 1: really knows this stuff very well, so the tour is
Speaker 1: easier to report live. On the other hand, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of barriers. I didn't get credentialed for my
Speaker 1: first event in Bedminster at Trump National, so they ended
Speaker 1: up giving me a ticket for free, which saved me
Speaker 1: I think three dollars because they were selling for a
Speaker 1: dollar on stuff up. So I just had a regular
Speaker 1: general ticket and walked around the grounds and it was
Speaker 1: very hard to talk to golfers. No one would really
Speaker 1: want to talk. They're all being kind of cagy, which
Speaker 1: I understood, but couldn't really get any interviews set up.
Speaker 1: And then I read the story in the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal that a lot of these guys, or maybe all
Speaker 1: of them, have clauses in their contract where they have
Speaker 1: to get interviews approved by the Live mothership, so to speak.
Speaker 1: So the tour was very easy. The tour was, you know,
Speaker 1: the usual kind of American sports model. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're open, go go talk to who you want to
Speaker 1: talk to, and Live was very much, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of top down controlled. No.
Speaker 2: I found the same thing when I covered the Live
Speaker 2: Portland event. And we can talk a little bit more
Speaker 2: about Bedminster. I want to get there. But at the
Speaker 2: Tour Championship, what was the impression that you picked up
Speaker 2: about the nature of the conflict between PGA tour loyalists
Speaker 2: and the guys who had jumped to live.
Speaker 1: There's a variety of views, but generally I think that
Speaker 1: there's kind of two camps. The one camp that is
Speaker 1: maybe it's a mix of people who are maybe interested
Speaker 1: in live and those people and also the people who
Speaker 1: are not interested in live but understand why people are going.
Speaker 1: You talk like Billy Horschel, there's a lot, not a
Speaker 1: lot of ill will from him to a lot of
Speaker 1: live golfers, and they understand, you know, you want to
Speaker 1: go get money, that's that's fine. I would rather stay here,
Speaker 1: but you know, that's an understandable choice. And then there's
Speaker 1: the people who who feel and I think that there's
Speaker 1: it's they will never say this, but it's a mix
Speaker 1: of people who are maybe jealous or a mix of
Speaker 1: people who maybe feel spurned or wanted the deal or
Speaker 1: still chasing a deal and having a tough time, who
Speaker 1: are more of the hardliners who are really kind of
Speaker 1: pissed off about this. So I think there's there's there's
Speaker 1: kind of those two camps. The one people who are like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't like the way a lot of
Speaker 1: people have gone about it. I don't like you suing
Speaker 1: us even there's the other people who are like, these
Speaker 1: people are horrible and uh and I hate them.
Speaker 2: What's the sense that you picked up from Roy McElroy
Speaker 2: about where he is in relation to those two groups.
Speaker 1: Rory is interesting. He plays it kind of close to
Speaker 1: the vest. Maybe he's a little bit of a I
Speaker 1: would say he's more of the first group, where I
Speaker 1: think he understands the motivations of a lot of these people,
Speaker 1: and I think that he really resents the fact that
Speaker 1: this is affecting his tour, which he really likes. I found,
Speaker 1: and it's it's hard to tell, but I found that
Speaker 1: he was one of the people who and probably he
Speaker 1: would I think you would admit this, probably because he
Speaker 1: has a lot of money to begin with, and he
Speaker 1: has a lot of sponsorships, and he's spending a lot
Speaker 1: of money on the tour. He is less motivated by
Speaker 1: money than I think a lot of people. And I
Speaker 1: think he really does genuinely love the tour and this
Speaker 1: is what he dreamed of, and he wants to protect
Speaker 1: the thing that he dreamed of. And there are a
Speaker 1: few people like that. A lot of people are just
Speaker 1: motivated simp by the money or by resentment. But so
Speaker 1: I think he resents in a way that they're messing
Speaker 1: up his tour. But I don't think that he really
Speaker 1: hates a lot of the people that went. But one
Speaker 1: of the things that he told me this didn't make
Speaker 1: it in the THEECE is we're talking about how this
Speaker 1: thing might end, and he was like, there has to
Speaker 1: be some sort of punishment to people who come back, otherwise,
Speaker 1: you know, if live folds or some people want to
Speaker 1: defect back. He feels like everyone could have just gone.
Speaker 1: He could have just gone and got it in, you know,
Speaker 1: one hundred something million dollars and then come back with
Speaker 1: no punishment. He still feels like, you know, there's got
Speaker 1: to be some sort of you know, penance paid by
Speaker 1: these golf guys. So I think there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a mix like it's it's it's it's personal for him,
Speaker 1: even if I think he understands on an intellectual level
Speaker 1: that you know, these guys are allowed to go get
Speaker 1: money and that's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Rory is such a fascinating figure in all this
Speaker 2: because he obviously is very smart and I think he's
Speaker 2: thinking of all of this pretty strategically. But but he
Speaker 2: has a lot of power, right He He's almost sort
Speaker 2: of like a shadow commissioner in a way because if he,
Speaker 2: if he wants something, then Jay Monahan, the PGA Tourist commissioner,
Speaker 2: is not really in that strong of a position to
Speaker 2: say no to him. And so, you know, getting getting
Speaker 2: Roy's take on things is always really interesting and important.
Speaker 2: So you went to Trump Bedminster, so you were not
Speaker 2: credentialed at this event. The New Yorker sent in a
Speaker 2: credential application and was rejected by by liv Golf. Do
Speaker 2: I have that? Do I have that right?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: And I have.
Speaker 1: I've never been rejected in a credential application for a
Speaker 1: sporting event. Ever, I don't think that's crazy. The one tournament,
Speaker 1: the FedEx Cup tournament I covered in New Jersey was
Speaker 1: at Plainfield Country Club and I was an intern at
Speaker 1: the Trentonian, which is like a small, very small tabloids.
Speaker 1: That's my freshman year of college, very small tablet in
Speaker 1: New Jersey. And the PJ was like, yeah, sure come,
Speaker 1: it's been all week there, so it was unusual.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, that's that is really interesting to me. I
Speaker 2: think we we sent in a credential application for the
Speaker 2: Frida Egg and got approved maybe thirty minutes later. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure there's necessarily a rhyme or reason to who
Speaker 2: they're letting in and who they're trying to keep out.
Speaker 2: So you were just there. They ended up giving you
Speaker 2: a free ticket. You were just there essentially as a fan.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that fans that reporters at live events
Speaker 2: have meaningfully more access to players than fans do in
Speaker 2: the end. But what was your experience like at Bedminster?
Speaker 1: It was It was bizarre. It was a weird experience.
Speaker 1: I would describe it as kind of like a MAGA
Speaker 1: rally with some golf mixed in. That was the crowd.
Speaker 1: I talked to one woman who said I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to tell my friends and clients that I was here.
Speaker 1: She lived in Florida, so she had a mix of
Speaker 1: Republican and Democrat friends. She said, I won't be able
Speaker 1: to tell friends and clients at all here or else.
Speaker 1: A lot of my clients would not talk to me
Speaker 1: ever again because it was it was basically a Trump rally.
Speaker 1: There was also a mix of like kind of curious
Speaker 1: bro types. The way I described this to friends is
Speaker 1: the guys that kind of you know, they wear there
Speaker 1: the like the flat brim HAPs like kind of on
Speaker 1: a tilt, like on their forehead and kind of like
Speaker 1: rest on top of their forehead. I kind of connected
Speaker 1: to to the lax bros that I grew up with.
Speaker 1: I grew up not far away, so I kind of
Speaker 1: understood the archetype, and that was not I was myself
Speaker 1: was not too far off from the archetype at some
Speaker 1: points in my life. But it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: it was I think it was like the curious bro
Speaker 1: types and then like the hardcore maga people. There were
Speaker 1: a lot of jokes about Hillary, a lot of jokes
Speaker 1: about Biden, a lot of let's go Brandon chance, and
Speaker 1: then Trump himself gave a speech. He as the players
Speaker 1: were coming through the sixteen tee box, which is this
Speaker 1: par three right by the clubhouse. He just got a
Speaker 1: microphone and started giving a little speech and then had
Speaker 1: a guy saying God bless America as the golfers were
Speaker 1: like continuing to play. So it was it was almost
Speaker 1: like people forgot that there was golf going on, and
Speaker 1: people just kind of flocked to this area where Trump
Speaker 1: was with Tucker Carlson and with Marjorie Taylor Green and
Speaker 1: that whole cast of characters. People just flock to just
Speaker 1: go see them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean so beyond the absurdity of this scene.
Speaker 2: And it is completely absurd to think that a golf
Speaker 2: event could take on the you know, character of a
Speaker 2: political rally, But that is what happened here. This indicates
Speaker 2: something I think about the way that the Live versus
Speaker 2: PGA Tour conflict has become absorbed into the larger culture wars, right,
Speaker 2: And I've been trying to figure this out because it
Speaker 2: doesn't map on perfectly. You know, the PGA Tour is
Speaker 2: not woke, as much as people want to portray it
Speaker 2: as that in opposition to Live Golf's sort of resistance,
Speaker 2: but there is something like that there there is something
Speaker 2: political about this conflict, and I was wondering if you
Speaker 2: ever got to a point where you could explain that
Speaker 2: to yourself. You know, what, how does this whole thing
Speaker 2: intersect with the culture wars?
Speaker 1: I think the best way I could break it down
Speaker 1: is that the live seems to attract the a lot
Speaker 1: of people that grew up with with not as much
Speaker 1: money or resources, So people who were maybe grew up
Speaker 1: a little bit more blue collar, or people who just
Speaker 1: this is this is I think where the culture politics
Speaker 1: comes into it. There's some people who grew up with,
Speaker 1: you know, plenty of money but identify kind of with
Speaker 1: like the white working class in some ways. And the
Speaker 1: people who more strongly associated I think with those groups
Speaker 1: also tended to be more Trump Republicans rather the mainline Republicans.
Speaker 1: They tended to go to live. Now. That's that's the golfers,
Speaker 1: and I also think that's that's the view. I think
Speaker 1: the kind of the distrust of elites is is how
Speaker 1: I would classify the like main appeal. If you know,
Speaker 1: if you distrust the elites, the PGA tour is like
Speaker 1: represents the elites in a lot of ways. And the
Speaker 1: people I met, even the fans who kind of had
Speaker 1: that suspicion or presentment toward the elites flocked toward live more.
Speaker 1: Not that there are a ton of live fans, but
Speaker 1: you'd meet people who were pro live these tournaments, and
Speaker 1: the PGA is more for like the Mitt Romney kind
Speaker 1: of mainline Republicans. There are not a lot of Democrats.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of leaving them out of this conversation. There
Speaker 1: are not a lot of Democrats on the tour, and
Speaker 1: I think there's some people that view it and you know,
Speaker 1: those people have are a little bit more principled and
Speaker 1: and think that somethings are more important than money. There's
Speaker 1: other people that say they grew up wealthier and so
Speaker 1: have the privilege and have the wherewithal of be able
Speaker 1: to say, oh, I don't need this money. I could
Speaker 1: stick with my principals as I have plenty of money already.
Speaker 1: So I think that's kind of how it broke down.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Nelson, who's a golf rider. Sure it's for the ringer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the paranoid style on Twitter. Yeah, Indie rocker.
Speaker 1: She's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, multi talented.
Speaker 1: Rocker, rock critic. She has a day job. Also, I
Speaker 1: don't know how she has the time. But the way
Speaker 1: she broke it down was that it Live kind of
Speaker 1: embodies trump Ism in a lot of ways in the
Speaker 1: way they kind of step over boundaries and things like that.
Speaker 1: And the PGA tour kind of fashions itself or maybe
Speaker 1: thinks of itself as like Abraham Lincoln. But the way
Speaker 1: she put it is the PGA Tour is more like
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell. That you know, we're fine with the lead
Speaker 1: of elitist, destructive behavior as long as we're able to
Speaker 1: do it, but the minute it starts being bad for
Speaker 1: business is the minute we say, whoahoa wo, we don't
Speaker 1: we don't love this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I want to make clear that that what
Speaker 2: you're laying out here is a very general map. I
Speaker 2: don't think your article implies that every person who goes
Speaker 2: to a live event is a is a MAGA Republican,
Speaker 2: or that all of this is, you know, perfectly predictive
Speaker 2: of a person's affiliation. But there's an undeniable tenor to
Speaker 2: how Live puts itself out in the world that you know,
Speaker 2: obviously Donald Trump himself has found it appealing. And you know,
Speaker 2: one question that's often been on my mind, aside from
Speaker 2: again the absurdity and the ridiculousness of this whole thing
Speaker 2: is that I wonder what this how this will play
Speaker 2: out as a strategic choice for Live, if associating itself
Speaker 2: with Trump and Marjorie Taylor Green and Tucker Carlson at
Speaker 2: this particular event, but also for other events and kind
Speaker 2: of in general, whether that's going to be a good
Speaker 2: strategic choice for Live or whether you think maybe Live
Speaker 2: has kind of painted itself into a corner here.
Speaker 1: This is one of the things that Rory McElroy was
Speaker 1: asking me, actually was about the fans that Live was
Speaker 1: attracting and kind of what the general vibe around it was.
Speaker 1: I think Rory thinks and a lot of people might
Speaker 1: think and reasonably that they are turning off half of
Speaker 1: their potential viewership. If half the country won't watch a
Speaker 1: product you see you associated with Trump, that puts you behind
Speaker 1: the eight ball, especially when you're already struggling to attract viewers.
Speaker 1: I think on the flip side, there's also this model
Speaker 1: that we've seen a lot in media with podcasters on
Speaker 1: the right and media figures on the right, where it's
Speaker 1: fine to turn off half the country, and in fact
Speaker 1: that's actually to your advantage because it activates the other half.
Speaker 1: Of the country, and people that might not watch golf
Speaker 1: at all might now watch you because they associate you
Speaker 1: with Trump and they like Trump. So I could see
Speaker 1: it going both ways. I do think that Live was
Speaker 1: a little bit surprised by how politicized the event was,
Speaker 1: So I don't know that this is a I don't
Speaker 1: know that it's an intentional strategy. I just got the
Speaker 1: sense that they thought it was going to be a
Speaker 1: little bit more about the golf and less about Trump
Speaker 1: than it was, which is crazy because this is what
Speaker 1: Trump does. He becomes the center of attention, and that's
Speaker 1: his main skill and talent is kind of drawing all
Speaker 1: the attention to himself. So if they were caught off guard,
Speaker 1: I think that was a miscalculation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a little naive, but yeah. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think that it's legitimately up in the air as to
Speaker 2: which direction Live is going to go next year and
Speaker 2: the years after that, whether they're going to try to
Speaker 2: strike a less controversial pose, because you know, whether that
Speaker 2: means anything for their affiliation with Trump, I don't know,
Speaker 2: but certainly when it comes to Greg Norman, who is
Speaker 2: currently the CEO of Live Golf, it seems like rumor
Speaker 2: has it that power players within Live are starting to
Speaker 2: look around for other options for leaders who might be
Speaker 2: somewhat less willing to fight in public right and somewhat
Speaker 2: more under control and disciplined than Greg Norman has traditionally been.
Speaker 2: And so I wonder whether Live is going to try
Speaker 2: to kind of smooth out its public stance a little
Speaker 2: bit and be somewhat less bellicos in the future.
Speaker 1: There's been this kind of like normanology where people are
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how the strategy has shifted or
Speaker 1: not shifted. And now he's trying to play nice, and
Speaker 1: now he's going at a little bit more at bellicos
Speaker 1: and what's the chess move? And I don't know that
Speaker 1: there is, Like it seems to just kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, it varies day to day. If he's angry
Speaker 1: about something, he's going to be angry about something, And
Speaker 1: I don't know that there's a deeper strategy behind that,
Speaker 1: And if there is, it certainly doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: working because it's hard to tell even what the strategy
Speaker 1: is because it shifts a lot in terms of we're
Speaker 1: trying to play nice and the PJ Tour is blackballing us,
Speaker 1: but we're still trying to engage with them, and now
Speaker 1: they're horrible and resuing them and it's you know, it
Speaker 1: seems to be kind of all over the place. I
Speaker 1: don't have any reporting on Norman's status within Live, but
Speaker 1: it wouldn't surprise me if the strategy from the Saudi
Speaker 1: executives from the outset was Norman is a polarizing figure
Speaker 1: and we need someone who's kind of not afraid to
Speaker 1: take on the establishment and also take a lot of
Speaker 1: the bullets, as Norman has done. He's been the face
Speaker 1: of this even though he is he's the CEO, but
Speaker 1: he still is answering to in particular Magi Alsa and
Speaker 1: Yaser al Rumayan, who are the two Saudi executives that
Speaker 1: are kind of this is their remit and they are
Speaker 1: certainly part of the decision making here. But you just
Speaker 1: hear like this is Norman's grand plan, when really he
Speaker 1: was just hired on his CEO. So I think if
Speaker 1: there was a strategy there, it may have been to
Speaker 1: hire someone who's a little bit more bellicose like Norman,
Speaker 1: and then as it establishes itself and as you get
Speaker 1: through the turbulent early year or two you might turn
Speaker 1: to someone who's a little bit more of a stable,
Speaker 1: more traditional CEO type.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And if there's any strategy and Live Golf,
Speaker 2: it certainly must be coming from the Saudi executives that
Speaker 2: you mentioned, rather than Greg Norman, who's not necessarily known
Speaker 2: for his calculating strategic mind. He's a man who's a
Speaker 2: little more driven by emotion. But speaking of those executives,
Speaker 2: one of the major gets in your piece was a
Speaker 2: sit down interview with Magic Alsoar, who is the CEO
Speaker 2: of the Saudi Golf Federation. So first of all, I
Speaker 2: mean a lot of listeners might not be familiar with
Speaker 2: Alsore or how powerful he is, how important he is,
Speaker 2: So could you just set up what his role is
Speaker 2: and how he's connected to other powerful people associated with.
Speaker 1: Live Okay, so to zoom all the way out. Basically,
Speaker 1: at the top of the Saudi Rabian government that the
Speaker 1: royal family is is Mohammad ben Salman, who's the Crown
Speaker 1: Prince effectively wields absolute power. His father's the king, but
Speaker 1: he is able to do most of what he wants
Speaker 1: within the country. So that's that's NBS is at the
Speaker 1: top within his circle of close advisors. Is a guy
Speaker 1: named Yaser al Rumayan, and he's the guy who runs
Speaker 1: the Saudi Wealth Fund, the Sovereign Wealth Fund, which funds LIVE.
Speaker 1: So he's the one ultimately who's you know, the buck stops.
Speaker 1: They are essentially at Rumyan in terms of of Live.
Speaker 1: He's not running all the day to day stuff because
Speaker 1: he's got a big remit. He's also the chairman of
Speaker 1: a Ramco, which I think is still the biggest company
Speaker 1: in the world. But he's he's the first big name
Speaker 1: is Yaser al Rumayan. Now he appointed or under his
Speaker 1: tenure a high school friend of his name Magid al Soorar,
Speaker 1: who's a former soccer player turned businessman. He lives in
Speaker 1: the US. He was a point of the head of
Speaker 1: the Saudi golf Federations, so he's in charge of the
Speaker 1: sport essentially within the country. That means investments in new
Speaker 1: golf courses and they're building tons of golf courses. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he also was the one who had been looking
Speaker 1: for investments like Live. So really those are the two
Speaker 1: main players. Is al soor who I talked to, and
Speaker 1: Yasser al Roumayan, who is his boss. He refers to
Speaker 1: him as the boss and those are the two main
Speaker 1: players here, so there's kind of three, you know, two
Speaker 1: degrees of separation between Soro to Ramon to n b.
Speaker 2: S got it? Okay? Now how did you end up
Speaker 2: getting to talk to Alsor? Because he he hasn't given
Speaker 2: many interviews to national media.
Speaker 1: So I was at Live's event in it's called Live
Speaker 1: Live Boston. It's really uh like an hour maybe for
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: It was Live Live Bolton, Lived.
Speaker 1: Bolton, Yeah, exactly at the International in Bolton, and I
Speaker 1: had just was hanging around all week, was at the
Speaker 1: pro am and guy announcing all the names that the
Speaker 1: pro am was this guy named Frank McNamara, just a
Speaker 1: very friendly, talkative guy, and we had just kind of
Speaker 1: been hanging around each other for a few days, Frank
Speaker 1: and I, and it was kind of a mover and
Speaker 1: shaker type, knows everyone knows how to get whatever he
Speaker 1: needs to get in any moment. He carried a clipboard
Speaker 1: around to kind of seem officials so he could just
Speaker 1: go wherever he wanted and was helping out in a
Speaker 1: volunteer capacity. I had been with him. I think this
Speaker 1: was on the second round. The morning of the second round,
Speaker 1: and there's me and a couple of people hanging around,
Speaker 1: and he said, oh, I'll be right back there. Someone
Speaker 1: I want to introduce you guys to, and he brought
Speaker 1: over Magid. And one of the first things Magic said
Speaker 1: to us is, you know, they I'm the guy that
Speaker 1: they called this scary motherfucker, kind of in the tone
Speaker 1: of like, can you believe that? Because you know, even
Speaker 1: you talk to a person, it's just a person. He's
Speaker 1: a you know, pretty nice, friendly guy when you interact
Speaker 1: with him. So he said, you know, can you believe this?
Speaker 1: They called me a scary motherfucker? And we started walking
Speaker 1: up the first the first hole together, and I introduced
Speaker 1: who I was, I said, him with the New Yorker.
Speaker 1: I said, I would have been wanting to talk to
Speaker 1: you or or or he refers to his excellency has
Speaker 1: been wanting to talk to you or his excellency for
Speaker 1: a long time, and you know, I would love to
Speaker 1: ask you about live and he he said, you know,
Speaker 1: he said, okay. We started talking and we walked a
Speaker 1: couple holes together and ended up going to one of
Speaker 1: the private suites with him and talking with him for
Speaker 1: some length or talking with him at some length. So
Speaker 1: it was we just kind of met him more impromptu, uh,
Speaker 1: and and ended up speaking for a while.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, let me just get a sense
Speaker 2: of of how he presents himself, because it's you know,
Speaker 2: seeing pictures of him. He uh, there's a persona there,
Speaker 2: So what what would you how would you just describe
Speaker 2: that persona.
Speaker 1: Appearance wise, He's he's very fit. He's a former soccer player,
Speaker 1: and you know, got big arms and and is you know,
Speaker 1: it seems to be in good shape. He loves wearing aviators.
Speaker 1: When I met him, I think he's wearing pink pants,
Speaker 1: you know, dresses in the typical golf fashion. And he's
Speaker 1: a businessman, so he he he He's run a lot
Speaker 1: of businesses in the US and elsewhere, and he speaks
Speaker 1: kind of at that language. He kind of views himself
Speaker 1: as a businessman in the business world, and and that's
Speaker 1: how he frames a lot of his conversations.
Speaker 2: He did say a number of really memorable things to you,
Speaker 2: including that introduction where he essentially quoted Phil Mickelson but
Speaker 2: didn't attribute the scary motherfucker quote to Phil Ncholson. He
Speaker 2: goes on to tell you we don't kill gays. I'll
Speaker 2: just tell you that, and there's a great little kind
Speaker 2: of fact check of that parenthetically and in the p
Speaker 2: but this was, you know, he was very blunt with you.
Speaker 2: One of the things that he said was, if the
Speaker 2: majors decide not to have our players play, I will celebrate.
Speaker 2: I will create my own majors for my players. So
Speaker 2: when he said this, was he being like really genuine
Speaker 2: or do you think this would sort of a pose?
Speaker 1: That's an interesting question. I think I think in some
Speaker 1: ways it's posturing, you know, it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: it's a negotiating tactic in a lot of ways, I think,
Speaker 1: and this is just my opinion. I think the ideal
Speaker 1: outcome is that the Live guys are allowed to play
Speaker 1: in majors and then end up winning some majors. And
Speaker 1: I think that's what Live would and maybe should want
Speaker 1: above all. But he also was when we were speaking
Speaker 1: about this, was viewing it kind of from a businessman sense,
Speaker 1: and he was also gaming out, you know, if I
Speaker 1: were the tour and I was a commissioner, here's how
Speaker 1: I would handle the majors. Because the tour doesn't get
Speaker 1: any revenue from the majors, yet all the players are
Speaker 1: the ones that are playing in the majors, So he
Speaker 1: was kind of gaming this out from a business perspective,
Speaker 1: and the Saudi's are the Wealth Fund is they're very
Speaker 1: long term investors. So I think if had anyone else
Speaker 1: made that statement, people would have said, Okay, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're going to create your own major. Now you're not.
Speaker 1: You kind of have to take with at least a
Speaker 1: little bit of seriousness the idea coming from people who
Speaker 1: associated with the Wealth Fund because they their time horizons
Speaker 1: are very long and they have enough capital too if
Speaker 1: they wanted to start to create events running opposite the
Speaker 1: majors that they're calling their own majors, and they understand
Speaker 1: that wouldn't have the same cachet, at least in the
Speaker 1: short term. But I think they think in the long term,
Speaker 1: if we get the best players, then our events aren't
Speaker 1: going to become de facto majors because we have the
Speaker 1: best players playing them.
Speaker 2: Hey, just cutting in here real quick. A couple of
Speaker 2: hours after Zach and I recorded our conversation, Golf Saudi
Speaker 2: released a statement from majidl Soor that said, in part,
Speaker 2: the story wrongfully expressed and misrepresented my views and he's
Speaker 2: talking about his views on the majors. Now, I should
Speaker 2: mention that the article doesn't represent Sora's views on the
Speaker 2: majors one way or another. It just quotes him, and
Speaker 2: Soora is not saying that he was misquoted. So it
Speaker 2: seems like this is damage control. But I thought i'd
Speaker 2: mention it because I didn't get a chance to ask
Speaker 2: Zach about it. If this statement had come out before
Speaker 2: the podcast, I certainly would have brought it up. Just
Speaker 2: wanted to put that out there, all right, that's it, absolutely.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that one thing that people who
Speaker 2: are in the traditional golf world have a hard time
Speaker 2: doing is imagining a world five years from now or
Speaker 2: ten years from now when Live might very well have
Speaker 2: most of the best golfers in the world. And you know,
Speaker 2: right now they have a lot of really great golfers,
Speaker 2: but some of them are a bit over the hill,
Speaker 2: and they don't have some of the key players on
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour who are really in form right now.
Speaker 2: But that might not be the case in five to
Speaker 2: ten years. And so how does everything change then if
Speaker 2: Live really kind of owns most of the best male
Speaker 2: professional golfers in the world, you know, if they create
Speaker 2: their own majors and the players have to play in those,
Speaker 2: then my goodness, that that would be something pretty significant, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the possibility right now looks fairly remote.
Speaker 1: There's just not enough revenue coming in to sustain this,
Speaker 1: and the going rate for the top golfers right now
Speaker 1: is so high that I don't know that even the
Speaker 1: Saudis would want to stomach it. I think what people
Speaker 1: have to remember is that this is they're investing two
Speaker 1: billion dollars or more, and that is a huge amount
Speaker 1: of money, certainly in the context of the golf world,
Speaker 1: but this is not a major strategic enterprise for the Saudis. Generally,
Speaker 1: the people within the Saudi government who are making other
Speaker 1: financial decisions know about this, but to them it's kind
Speaker 1: of a small thing. The wealth Fund right now has
Speaker 1: more than six hundred billion dollars in assets and they're
Speaker 1: hoping to grow it into the trillions very soon. So
Speaker 1: two billion dollars is not a huge amount. And if
Speaker 1: they're going to have to pay one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: to two hundred million dollars or more to get the
Speaker 1: top players, I just think that becomes so expensive that
Speaker 1: they might not even want to pay it. Now if
Speaker 1: they do get the top players, You're right. I think
Speaker 1: the people within the tour view this as kind of
Speaker 1: an existential battle. If you talk to Davis Love, he'll
Speaker 1: tell you that LIVE says it wants to coexist. But really,
Speaker 1: if they get the top players, then that kind of
Speaker 1: turns the tour into just a minor league feeder system
Speaker 1: that Okay, you've developed some good talent and now we're
Speaker 1: going to pay him and pick them off. So they
Speaker 1: do kind of view this as you know, this is
Speaker 1: life or death. That if LIV does get the top players,
Speaker 1: and I think they realize that the tour as as
Speaker 1: we know it kind of ceases to exist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but your point that that possibility is remote, partly
Speaker 2: because Live is such a small thing in the general
Speaker 2: picture of the of Saudi Arabia's strategy in the world,
Speaker 2: is well taken. You know that Live Golf was sort
Speaker 2: of lightly formed. You know, in your article you mentioned
Speaker 2: that it's not even super clear how much this was
Speaker 2: communicated to MBS himself, though he certainly would have had
Speaker 2: to at some point engage with the idea and sign
Speaker 2: off on it. But if it was so easy to
Speaker 2: kind of form this under the umbrella of the public
Speaker 2: Investment Fund. Then surely it would also be easy just
Speaker 2: to dissolve it. And so that's that's a looming possibility
Speaker 2: here as well, and perhaps the fantasy outcome for PGA
Speaker 2: tour people. Now, I want to get to this strategic,
Speaker 2: this political question of sports washing. You've already said that
Speaker 2: you're skeptical of this. You quote a couple of very
Speaker 2: serious experts in your article, including David Schanker, the Assistant
Speaker 2: Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and Joseph Westfall,
Speaker 2: US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia formerly both both are former positions,
Speaker 2: the ones that I mentioned, and they too are you know,
Speaker 2: think that sports washing, that term doesn't really represent what
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia is doing here. So why don't you tell
Speaker 2: me why you're suspicious of that interpretation and what you
Speaker 2: think is really going on here.
Speaker 1: Well, so, I think if you just look at this
Speaker 1: from bigger pictures perspective, spending two billion dollars on this
Speaker 1: and you could you could buy a pretty serious advertising,
Speaker 1: traditional advertising campaign for two billion dollars. It just seems
Speaker 1: like a very roundabout way if you wanted to improve
Speaker 1: your your reputation. It seems like a roundabout way. There
Speaker 1: are more efficient ways to do it. And as a
Speaker 1: result of live people are talking more about show Kei
Speaker 1: and about even Saudi Arabia's role in nine to eleven,
Speaker 1: which they weren't talking about at all before. So I
Speaker 1: think if you were looking at as kind of a
Speaker 1: reputational game, it wouldn't it wouldn't be worth anything right now.
Speaker 1: But certainly there are more effective ways to improve one's
Speaker 1: reputation if you wanted to. But if if you talk
Speaker 1: to people who are more insidery, people who communicate with Nebs,
Speaker 1: they'll tell you that he and the royal family generally
Speaker 1: has kind of given up on trying to improve their
Speaker 1: reputation personally, that they they've realized that the West is
Speaker 1: never going to love them for a number of reasons,
Speaker 1: and they are just not so naive that they could
Speaker 1: fix their reputation in any shorter, medium term length of time.
Speaker 1: And now what I what I what what people like
Speaker 1: Shanker and others will tell you is is that the
Speaker 1: Saudis right now are are kind of in this rivalry
Speaker 1: with the Emiordes and with Dubai. Saudi Arabia is trying
Speaker 1: very rapidly to diversify their economy. They've for a long
Speaker 1: time been very reliant on oil, almost totally reliant on
Speaker 1: oil revenues, and realize that the days of relying on
Speaker 1: oil revenues are numbered. So they are very rapidly trying
Speaker 1: to diversify and modernize their economy, and they're trying to
Speaker 1: develop all these new sectors. One of the things nbs
Speaker 1: IS is very uh pays a lot of attention to
Speaker 1: is the fact that a lot of young, wealthy Saudis
Speaker 1: end up leaving the country if they want to go
Speaker 1: on vacation, if they want to get medical care, if
Speaker 1: they want certain jobs. Western tourists when they come to
Speaker 1: the Middle East, or Western businessmen when they come to
Speaker 1: the Middle East they go to places like Dubai. They
Speaker 1: don't come to Saudi Arabia. So they're trying to develop
Speaker 1: Saudi business and they're trying to develop Saudi tourism. And
Speaker 1: one of the big groups of people that they want
Speaker 1: to attract is wealthy Westerners. And one thing that they
Speaker 1: know appeals to wealthy Westerners is golf. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of you know, there's the question of what is sports
Speaker 1: watching and what's not but I don't view this as
Speaker 1: a reputation laundering game for MBS. I view this as
Speaker 1: kind of like an advertising marketing vehicle for Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: to say, hey, you don't think of us as a
Speaker 1: golf destination because we're mostly desert, we're very weater, scarce,
Speaker 1: and there's traditionally not a lot to do in the country.
Speaker 1: But actually we're pumping a lot of money into the
Speaker 1: golf sector and people start associating Saudi Arabia with golf,
Speaker 1: and that, I think, from a strategic aim is what
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia is after is they're trying to position themselves
Speaker 1: as a place to do business, to visit, and this
Speaker 1: serves to reinforce that point. I also think and a
Speaker 1: lot of people discount this. I also think that they
Speaker 1: do view this as a legitimate business. I think they
Speaker 1: wouldn't be spending two billion dollars if they didn't think
Speaker 1: that they could make some sort of money. And their
Speaker 1: time horizons are a lot longer than most, so they
Speaker 1: are okay with losing money in the short term. But
Speaker 1: I do think that they believe that they can turn
Speaker 1: this into a legitimate business. They think they could sell
Speaker 1: off these franchises for hundreds of billion, hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars or maybe even a billion dollars each for
Speaker 1: their twelve franchises, and that's how they're going to recoup
Speaker 1: their money. If you talk to people were involved in
Speaker 1: the Premier Golf League deals and talks, they are highly
Speaker 1: skeptical of this. They just think the Saudis are spending
Speaker 1: way too much money and more money, and they don't
Speaker 1: have enough money coming in to recoup their investment. But
Speaker 1: I do think that it shouldn't be discounted that the
Speaker 1: Saudis you believe that they can turn this into a
Speaker 1: profitable business.
Speaker 2: Do you think that that's a delusional position?
Speaker 1: I I think most people that I've talked to think so. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The people who really know the business side of this
Speaker 1: just don't think it's possible. Now, people are hesitant to
Speaker 1: completely write off the idea because sports franchises tend to
Speaker 1: be very lucrative and they go up in value, and
Speaker 1: they appeal to people who have a lot of money
Speaker 1: to spend and maybe want to hang around some golfers.
Speaker 1: So there might be people willing to shell out money
Speaker 1: for these franchises. But right now, you know, sports franchises
Speaker 1: are lucrative because they have lots of money and TV deals.
Speaker 1: The NFL attracts so many people and they have so
Speaker 1: much TV revenue, and that's really the reason why NFL
Speaker 1: franchises are worth so much. There are on YouTube, like
Speaker 1: you know, not many thousands of people watching these live
Speaker 1: golf events right now. So if something needs to change drastically,
Speaker 1: I think in terms of the revenue they're bringing in
Speaker 1: to actually become a viable business, and I think that's unlikely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's what I've heard from a
Speaker 2: lot of people as well. But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm smart enough or knowledgeable enough about
Speaker 2: international business in order to say for sure whether these
Speaker 2: franchises are never going to be worth what the Saudis
Speaker 2: think they're going to be worth. Because you know, just
Speaker 2: imagine like there's a eventually, maybe a Team Japan or
Speaker 2: a Team South Korea that's backed by some massive business
Speaker 2: in one of those countries that could potentially be very valuable.
Speaker 2: But there do seem to be quite a few smart
Speaker 2: people who are skeptical, skeptical that that could ever come about.
Speaker 2: But I want to return for a moment to the
Speaker 2: sportswa washing question, because what you described about the Saudi
Speaker 2: rivalry with the UAE and the intention to turn Saudi
Speaker 2: Arabia into a destination, including a golf destination for wealthy Westerners,
Speaker 2: that for me, aligns with what I've always understood sportswashing
Speaker 2: partially to be. And you know, maybe this ultimately boils
Speaker 2: down to an uninteresting issue of semantics. What do we
Speaker 2: call sports washing and what do we not call sports washing?
Speaker 2: But I think that trying to portray a nation to
Speaker 2: the world in a different way is a kind of
Speaker 2: marketing tactic and does involve some sort of reputation laundering,
Speaker 2: even if that marketing isn't necessarily targeted at everyone, It's
Speaker 2: targeted towards someone, in this case, toward wealthy Westerners who
Speaker 2: are interested in golf and might be, you know, willing
Speaker 2: to see Saudi Arabia as a place that they could
Speaker 2: potentially go and spend money. I think of that as
Speaker 2: being sort of what most people have described sportswa washing
Speaker 2: to be. To me, where do you do you see
Speaker 2: an important distinction between what, say, you know, Joseph Westfall
Speaker 2: was describing as sports washing, and he sort of rejected
Speaker 2: the idea. I think that idea is ridiculous what he
Speaker 2: thinks of as sportswa washing. Do you think there's an
Speaker 2: important distin distinction between that and this kind of you know,
Speaker 2: marketing tactic to turn Saudi Arabia into a golf destination.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting question, and I made the point in
Speaker 1: the piece that you could view this as Joseph Westfall
Speaker 1: does and a lot of other Saudi watchers that I
Speaker 1: talked to, that the idea that this is sports watching
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. You could view it that way. If you
Speaker 1: view this, you know, this sportswa washing aim to be
Speaker 1: to launder the reputation of NBS and the royal family specifically.
Speaker 1: I think another way that you could look at this
Speaker 1: is this is sportswashing of a more familiar type. That
Speaker 1: you are taking something or some people with a reputation
Speaker 1: that is one thing, and you are using this sport
Speaker 1: of golf to turn it into something else. I think
Speaker 1: that there is a fine you know there there are
Speaker 1: kind of a spectrum of this, and one end there's
Speaker 1: just you know, regular marketing, and one end there's you know,
Speaker 1: the sportswashing is just for laundering the reputation of a
Speaker 1: despot or a leader of a country or whatever it
Speaker 1: might be. But I think you could make the case
Speaker 1: that golf generally and the Tour has engaged in things
Speaker 1: like this. There are a lot of golfers that are
Speaker 1: unseemly or do unseemly things, even kind of the icons
Speaker 1: that that everyone worships, like Jack Nicholas has dodgy parts
Speaker 1: of his past, He's made some racist statements, and yet
Speaker 1: the Tour has been very good at using the game
Speaker 1: of golf and its association with things like character and
Speaker 1: integrity and charity to turn these men who are imperfect
Speaker 1: and just human. You know. It's I don't think that
Speaker 1: they're any worse than than you or I or anyone else,
Speaker 1: but turning them from flawed humans into these like paragons
Speaker 1: of character and integrity and like the gentleman that everyone
Speaker 1: should aspire to and and and because of that, making
Speaker 1: them ideal vessels to sell, like role X's and things
Speaker 1: like that. So I think that you could you could
Speaker 1: make the case that a lot lots of things are sportswashing,
Speaker 1: and that maybe a lot of you know, what golf
Speaker 1: does from the business side is been sportswa washing all along.
Speaker 1: I do think that there is is a it's it's
Speaker 1: maybe a subtle distinction, but an important distinction between laundering
Speaker 1: say NBS's reputation and MBS. You could point to a
Speaker 1: lot of actions of his that are really horrible and
Speaker 1: laundering the reputation of even a country that he runs,
Speaker 1: because that is, you know, it is going to have
Speaker 1: a pause of effect on a lot of people if
Speaker 1: if you know, there is a thriving economy and lots
Speaker 1: of opportunities for men and women. I think that there's
Speaker 1: an important dissinction to be made there. And also I
Speaker 1: think that laundering the reputation of just one person kind
Speaker 1: of strikes a lot of people. It's just like this
Speaker 1: is a vanity project that's pointless, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: just for this person's ego, Whereas you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a broader economic thing can have positive effects on a
Speaker 1: broader set of people.
Speaker 2: And there's an argument that some pro live people make
Speaker 2: that live could be part of a project that sees
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia quote unquote modernize or to kind of root
Speaker 2: out some of the destructive, destructive practices that many Westerners
Speaker 2: abhorror now I want to be careful in my language here,
Speaker 2: because you know, talking about this can sometimes feel like
Speaker 2: it verges on Islamophobia, right where where we're demasizing a
Speaker 2: certain people and and and saying that, you know, the
Speaker 2: way that these people can redeem themselves is to become
Speaker 2: more like us. That there's something icky about that, but
Speaker 2: it is a line that many people have used to
Speaker 2: support what Live is doing, including Graham McDowell, who made
Speaker 2: a comment of this sort in London. And so what
Speaker 2: do you make of that argument that this, you know,
Speaker 2: could be something that does a service to Saudi Arabia
Speaker 2: and to the rest of the world. Is that as
Speaker 2: much bullshit as the gentleman narrative on the PGA tour is.
Speaker 1: I I was, first of all, just you know, amused
Speaker 1: by how poorly, uh, this idea was presented by a
Speaker 1: lot of golfers, like like Graham McDowell Bath he was.
Speaker 2: He was not ready for it. He was not prepared
Speaker 2: for that at all.
Speaker 1: Which is amazing because you have you have to anticipate
Speaker 1: that these are the questions you're going to get. Uh.
Speaker 1: Someone was asked about if they would play for Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin and they just wouldn't answer it. You could just
Speaker 1: say no, it's never going to become a real choice,
Speaker 1: you know, you could just say no. And and Graham McDowell,
Speaker 1: who could talk about in one breath the murder of
Speaker 1: a journalist and the brutal murder of a journalist and
Speaker 1: then say, but you know, if the Saudis want to
Speaker 1: use golf and help them to improve themselves, great, I'm
Speaker 1: happy to be proud to do that. I was just
Speaker 1: kind of a gast and and amused in a way
Speaker 1: by the the just how poorly they answered some of
Speaker 1: these questions. I think a small scale, you could you
Speaker 1: could make the argument that golf has been good for
Speaker 1: regular Saudis. They have women who who who play at
Speaker 1: the Saudi stops on the tour, on their tour talk
Speaker 1: about it really positively. They're treated very well. They're they're
Speaker 1: trying to get Saudi women into the game. But I
Speaker 1: think on a grander scale, whether or not live golf
Speaker 1: existed ever or you know, or didn't, it's not going
Speaker 1: to make that big of a difference on the lives
Speaker 1: of any everyday Saudis. It's it's really I think it's
Speaker 1: this is kind of a symptom of the general kind
Speaker 1: of self importance that a lot of golfers seem to
Speaker 1: have imbibed, or as most throughout the years, it's it's
Speaker 1: just golf, you know. It's it's really not going to
Speaker 1: make that big of a difference. And I think it's
Speaker 1: okay to say, you know, your interest in this is
Speaker 1: because they're paying you a lot of money, and that's understandable.
Speaker 1: People work for money, and I think people would would
Speaker 1: identify with that a little bit more and saying, you know,
Speaker 1: we're doing this to change the world because it's golf.
Speaker 1: It's it's really not going to change the world, all right.
Speaker 2: I think that's a good place to wrap up. Zach.
Speaker 2: Your piece again online is called will the Saudi's and
Speaker 2: Donald Trump Save Golf or Wreck It? It's on the
Speaker 2: New dot com right now, and am I right that
Speaker 2: it's coming out in the print magazine next in next
Speaker 2: week's issue.
Speaker 1: It's this week, so if you subscribe, it may have
Speaker 1: reached you already, and it's a newsstands now this week.
Speaker 2: This episode of the Frida Egg Podcast was edited by
Speaker 2: Meg Atkins. If you'd like to support the Frida Egg,
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