Later this week, the LIV Golf tour will play its third event of the season at former President Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey. Days before the shotgun start, it’s already the most contentious event on a tour that’s known nothing but controversy in its nine months of formal existence.
LIV has enticed many of the biggest names in golf, including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau, away from the PGA Tour with the allure of massive signing bonuses and guaranteed payouts at 54-hole, no-cut events. Backed by the vast wealth of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, LIV Golf has drawn accusations of “sportswashing” – that is, using spectacles such as sports to distract from, or normalize, human rights violations committed by the Saudi regime.