I don't watch golf other than maybe some of the final round of the U.S. Open or the Masters. Maybe.
I know that there are ham and eggers on the tour that have to fight like hell to make enough to feed their family, and that those same lower echelon guys get a pretty solid living wage at LIV. I'm not stupid about the power and leverage that offering big money has.
Graeme has done enough that he's got money. He can endorse products. He's got choices.
It's blood money. It might be a big enough pile of blood money that you have some empathy for a guy who took it, but it's still blood money from the guys who gave us 9/11.
I grew up with golf being in a CC in Leeds so I get PGA’s “tradition” hand wringing. Mostly I agree but with no one challenging them for so long things have become stale as they print money and dictate the talent that can make it thru their pipeline. As mentioned above, it’s not as tainted as LIV money, but it’s long past time to shake things up if golf is going to grow in the US.
(02-16-2023 07:35 PM)blazers9911 Wrote: You are well within your rights to call him whatever you want. None of us have been presented with an open checkbook, so we don’t know how we’d respond in his shoes. What happened to Khashoggi was horrible. What happened to make the World Cup take place was horrible, yet people participated and watched. What’s happening in China today(concentration camps) has stopped no number of athletes from competing there. Hell if you aren’t from the US there are probably a mountain of moral reasons you shouldn’t participate in sports here.
I wish him the best and hope he can live with the decision he made.
On that note why do we allow Russian citizens to get scholarships to our universities (looking at you big dumb Russian guy on FAU) when our citizens are illegally detained there in awful conditions and our government has to issue “GTFO of Russia NOW” orders for American citizens while they wage unjustified genocidal warfare against a most peaceful, democratic country?
And yes McDowell took blood money. I agree it’d be very tough to say how we’d all react in the same situation.
(02-16-2023 07:35 PM)blazers9911 Wrote: You are well within your rights to call him whatever you want. None of us have been presented with an open checkbook, so we don’t know how we’d respond in his shoes. What happened to Khashoggi was horrible. What happened to make the World Cup take place was horrible, yet people participated and watched. What’s happening in China today(concentration camps) has stopped no number of athletes from competing there. Hell if you aren’t from the US there are probably a mountain of moral reasons you shouldn’t participate in sports here.
I wish him the best and hope he can live with the decision he made.
On that note why do we allow Russian citizens to get scholarships to our universities (looking at you big dumb Russian guy on FAU) when our citizens are illegally detained there in awful conditions and our government has to issue “GTFO of Russia NOW” orders for American citizens while they wage unjustified genocidal warfare against a most peaceful, democratic country?
And yes McDowell took blood money. I agree it’d be very tough to say how we’d all react in the same situation.
Well, one reason is every Russian citizen isn't responsible for what Putin, a non-democratically "elected" leader, does. LIV isn't put on by random Saudi citizens, it's put on by the Saudi Royal Family. We're not talking about a random Russian citizen, we're talking about Putin
(This post was last modified: 02-17-2023 07:39 AM by mixduptransistor.)
(02-16-2023 07:35 PM)blazers9911 Wrote: You are well within your rights to call him whatever you want. None of us have been presented with an open checkbook, so we don’t know how we’d respond in his shoes. What happened to Khashoggi was horrible. What happened to make the World Cup take place was horrible, yet people participated and watched. What’s happening in China today(concentration camps) has stopped no number of athletes from competing there. Hell if you aren’t from the US there are probably a mountain of moral reasons you shouldn’t participate in sports here.
I wish him the best and hope he can live with the decision he made.
On that note why do we allow Russian citizens to get scholarships to our universities (looking at you big dumb Russian guy on FAU) when our citizens are illegally detained there in awful conditions and our government has to issue “GTFO of Russia NOW” orders for American citizens while they wage unjustified genocidal warfare against a most peaceful, democratic country?
And yes McDowell took blood money. I agree it’d be very tough to say how we’d all react in the same situation.
Well, one reason is every Russian citizen isn't responsible for what Putin, a non-democratically "elected" leader, does. LIV isn't put on by random Saudi citizens, it's put on by the Saudi Royal Family. We're not talking about a random Russian citizen, we're talking about Putin
I realize my question was not directly comparable to the LIV tour, but it brought the question up in my mind.
Russian citizens aren't directly responsible for what Putin is and has done, but they are largely complicit bc they either don't care or actively support him.
That leads me back to my question though, why should we allow Russian citizens scholarships to our universities when our government has to issue a GTFO now order for Americans just simply being in their country? Doesn't that seem a bit incongruous?
He should be free to go study abroad at the fine universities of Belarus or North Korea, not the USA. Russian and Belarussian athletes should not be participating in any sort of international competitions or the Olympics, either.
There's several Putin fanboys in the NHL too.
Sorry, total derail of the underlying thread.
Blood money.
(This post was last modified: 02-17-2023 08:36 AM by The Answer UAB.)
I think that we need to clean our own porch off before we start sweeping somebody else’s. Just about all of us have partaken in “blood money”. Most of us have purchased goods from mainland China or some other repressed part of the world where sweatshops furnish high margins to manufacturers while providing relatively low prices to US consumers. Do any of us really know where the oil used in our refineries or the diamonds in our wives wedding rings come from?
In regards to foreign students (or legally employed foreign workers for that matter), I believe that this provides the best opportunity to communicate our way of life to other people of the world without the lens of propaganda. Obviously, some of these students or workers may be here for nefarious reasons which should be taken in account with sensitive research or areas.
(02-17-2023 08:35 AM)MAN4UAB Wrote: I think that we need to clean our own porch off before we start sweeping somebody else’s. Just about all of us have partaken in “blood money”. Most of us have purchased goods from mainland China or some other repressed part of the world where sweatshops furnish high margins to manufacturers while providing relatively low prices to US consumers. Do any of us really know where the oil used in our refineries or the diamonds in our wives wedding rings come from?
In regards to foreign students (or legally employed foreign workers for that matter), I believe that this provides the best opportunity to communicate our way of life to other people of the world without the lens of propaganda. Obviously, some of these students or workers may be here for nefarious reasons which should be taken in account with sensitive research or areas.
I agree with that in general, but I think it's a hard stop when the leader of that country is threatening nuclear war every other week, actively waging genocidal, horrific warfare on a peaceful, western-aligned, democratic country, and our government doesn't think it's even safe for our citizens to simply be in Russia, let alone going there for a free education or work there.
I mean we did turn around planes full of their citizens, we sanction those who openly support Putin, and the country has been mostly cut off from Western businesses and products
Again, we don't blanket punish a population, or discriminate against someone just because of where they're from. We take it on a case by case basis. Is the person coming to the US a Putin ally? Probably not getting in. Is it a random Russian citizen who is leaving for a better life? That's what America is supposedly about. I know it hasn't been for the past 7-8 years (or, even the past 23 years or so) but it's something we in theory stand for
(02-17-2023 08:35 AM)MAN4UAB Wrote: I think that we need to clean our own porch off before we start sweeping somebody else’s. Just about all of us have partaken in “blood money”. Most of us have purchased goods from mainland China or some other repressed part of the world where sweatshops furnish high margins to manufacturers while providing relatively low prices to US consumers. Do any of us really know where the oil used in our refineries or the diamonds in our wives wedding rings come from?
In regards to foreign students (or legally employed foreign workers for that matter), I believe that this provides the best opportunity to communicate our way of life to other people of the world without the lens of propaganda. Obviously, some of these students or workers may be here for nefarious reasons which should be taken in account with sensitive research or areas.
How dare you call them hypocrites! I'm sure they've never purchased Nike apparel, or diamonds, or Apple phones!
Graeme made a decision to better his future. The PGA does business with companies that I'm sure have committed some sort of human rights violation in the past. Are the guys on the PGA Tour also taking blood money?
LIV is a deliberate attempt by the Saudis to use their billions of oil money to attempt to purchase respectability (or at least tolerance) in polite society. I despise the House of Saud and most of their works. I get to be judgemental if I want to. First amendment and all that.
It's a freakin' message board. Nothing we say here affects a damn thing anyhow.
Mickelson and DeChambeau's antitrust suit against the PGA and the PGA's countersuit against them and LIV golf is in progress. The judge has ruled that Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who runs Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, must sit for a deposition and produce documents. Betcha twenty bucks that he refuses. The claim is that the PIF is just an investor in LIV Golf, but they put in two billion dollars, which is a bit different from "just an investor".
"It is plain that PIF is not a mere investor in LIV; it is the moving force behind the founding, funding, oversight and operation of LIV," van Keulen wrote in the ruling. "PIF's actions are indisputably the type of activities by which a private party engages in trade and traffic or commerce. Accordingly, the court concludes that PIF has engaged in commercial activity.
PIF and Al-Rumayyan had argued that they were merely investors in LIV Golf, which is being fronted by two-time Open Championship winner Greg Norman, and weren't involved in the day-to-day operations or recruitment of players. PIF has invested more than $2 billion in LIV Golf, which begins its second season in Mexico next week.
The PGA Tour's lawyers had argued that Al-Rumayyan personally recruited players and "played an active role in contract negotiations, and expressly approved each of the player contracts -- all while knowing that these deals would interfere with the players' tour contracts." In her ruling, van Keulen agreed with the PGA Tour."
The wife and I are through the first 2 episodes of Full Swing and love it.
Been reading this thread, and honestly all the pearl-clutching about LIV humors me. I honestly don't have much interest in LIV, because I don't think it has or will ever have what the PGA tour has. A bunch of really good golfers in big time tournaments with a lot of drama. LIV has mostly a bunch of has-beens and never-weres, playing tournaments you never heard of because they didn't exist 2 years ago. The only thing on the line is money. A lot of money. But that just isn't going to generate interest.
That being said: all this "blood money" talk... Come on. I know I'm repeating what someone already said earlier, but the Saudis pale in comparison to what the Chinese Communist Party are doing. For as much as people throw around comparisons to certain historical people, parties and practices- the CCP is the closest to fitting the bill. Yes, it's terrible that some journalist was murdered and dismembered on the command of the Saudi government (a journalist most had likely never heard of before he was killed...). But the CCP has people stuffed into concentration camps. Literally, not figuratively. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of them. The ones not dying are being used as slave labor to build the iPhone components people are using to type on this forum. They own the cobalt mines in Africa where what is essentially slave labor is digging out the minerals that go into your Tesla. And yet nobody blinks an eye when the NBA, which is sacrosanct and immune from criticism, scrapes as much money in from them, while silencing anyone who dares speak out. And we all buy our iPhones, and our Teslas, and everything else churning out of a country of slaves, never batting and eye. And then excoriate Graeme McDowell, or Phil Mickelson, or some other golfer for taking "Blood Money." (And I won't even get into how much Saudi, and other Gulf region "blood money," is tied up in sponsorships both direct and indirect, based on the fact they're invested in everything, that exists...ON THE PGA TOUR!!!)
Bottom line, people need to quit being naïve and get off the high horse. This is the real world you live in.
It’s called sports cleansing or something like that. The whole idea is to use sports to try to make people forget the bone sawing, the fact that almost all of the 911 high jackers we Saudi, and other unsavory Saudi stuff.
It is not working. Their golf tour has done nothing, but reminded the American public what @$$holes the Saudis and their ruling family really are.
I doubt seriously whether it will be long lived after they figure out that money can’t buy a good reputation.
(This post was last modified: 02-22-2023 11:44 PM by CajunBlazer.)
(02-20-2023 01:14 PM)BatesUAB Wrote: The wife and I are through the first 2 episodes of Full Swing and love it.
Been reading this thread, and honestly all the pearl-clutching about LIV humors me. I honestly don't have much interest in LIV, because I don't think it has or will ever have what the PGA tour has. A bunch of really good golfers in big time tournaments with a lot of drama. LIV has mostly a bunch of has-beens and never-weres, playing tournaments you never heard of because they didn't exist 2 years ago. The only thing on the line is money. A lot of money. But that just isn't going to generate interest.
That being said: all this "blood money" talk... Come on. I know I'm repeating what someone already said earlier, but the Saudis pale in comparison to what the Chinese Communist Party are doing. For as much as people throw around comparisons to certain historical people, parties and practices- the CCP is the closest to fitting the bill. Yes, it's terrible that some journalist was murdered and dismembered on the command of the Saudi government (a journalist most had likely never heard of before he was killed...). But the CCP has people stuffed into concentration camps. Literally, not figuratively. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of them. The ones not dying are being used as slave labor to build the iPhone components people are using to type on this forum. They own the cobalt mines in Africa where what is essentially slave labor is digging out the minerals that go into your Tesla. And yet nobody blinks an eye when the NBA, which is sacrosanct and immune from criticism, scrapes as much money in from them, while silencing anyone who dares speak out. And we all buy our iPhones, and our Teslas, and everything else churning out of a country of slaves, never batting and eye. And then excoriate Graeme McDowell, or Phil Mickelson, or some other golfer for taking "Blood Money." (And I won't even get into how much Saudi, and other Gulf region "blood money," is tied up in sponsorships both direct and indirect, based on the fact they're invested in everything, that exists...ON THE PGA TOUR!!!)
Bottom line, people need to quit being naïve and get off the high horse. This is the real world you live in.
Is someone here singing the praises of the People's Republic of China that I'm missing?
(02-20-2023 06:25 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote: Is someone here singing the praises of the People's Republic of China that I'm missing?
No. But people are acting like the foundation of society has been eroded because of professional golfers being paid by Saudi Arabia. And I find that ridiculous. Especially considering I saw no such outrage (here or anywhere else) when billions were pumped into, and generated off of, the Olympics being hosted by a genocidal regime in Beijing. Twice.
I don't like hypocrisy, and I don't like virtue signaling.
(This post was last modified: 02-20-2023 10:41 PM by BatesUAB.)
(02-20-2023 06:25 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote: Is someone here singing the praises of the People's Republic of China that I'm missing?
No. But people are acting like the foundation of society has been eroded because of professional golfers being paid by Saudi Arabia. And I find that ridiculous. Especially considering I saw no such outrage (here or anywhere else) when billions were pumped into, and generated off of, the Olympics being hosted by a genocidal regime in Beijing. Twice.
I don't like hypocrisy, and I don't like virtue signaling.
There was plenty of blowback out in the wider world about China hosting the Olympics, particularly the latest time because it coincided with the Uyghur situation becoming much more widely known. There was also a lot of complaining about Russia hosting in Sochi, too, for what it's worth
As for around here, I don't think we had an alumnus involved. I guess we could turn this into a forum to gripe about everything around the world, even if it's not UAB related--hell there is more non-UAB talk around here than UAB talk lately--but it's a little unfair to say that because no one here complained about the Chinese Olympics you can't be disappointed that a former UAB athlete is participating in LIV Golf
For what it's worth, it's extremely hard to know that Graeme is affiliated with UAB in any way, anyway. Nothing on his website anymore other than a notation he played at "Alabama -Birmingham". Does he ever come back and do promos or fundraising or be involved at UAB whether in the Athletics Department or the University as a whole?
/
PLOT TWIST!!! SBR: Graeme McDowell & LIV golf tour
