Maybe they spent too much on executioners back home. Maybe they spent too much on those new green and white Newcastle United kits whose magical properties will make Eddie Howe's side look like the Saudi Arabia national team next season while simultaneously managing to give the fans their club back.
Whatever the reason, there's got to be some explanation for why an organiser as fabulously wealthy as the Saudis managed to make the first event of its breakaway LIV Golf series look like a low-rent, low-wattage, low-brow, low-end, poor man's version of It's A Knockout.