This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I wrote the other day that Donald Trump and “professional” wrestling were made for each other.

Both are fakes.

Now, along comes another comparison that is too ripe to pass up.  I couldn’t help myself, so I wrote yet another blog on LIV.  Don’t know why, but at least I’ll feel better for the effort, which is enough.

The new comparison:  Trump and LIV golf were made for each other.

Both focus on hype and a carnival atmosphere, much like the lead huckster, either Trump in American politics or Greg Norman in LIV.  The context for this is that LIV held its most recent “tournament” (no, call it an “exhibition”) at one of Trump’s golf courses in Florida. 

Writing for GolfWeek’s on-line magazine, Eamon Lynch had it just right when his column appeared under this headline:  “The marriage of LIV Golf and Donald Trump is the stuff schemes are made of.”

“So much of the commentary about LIV Golf has focused on what it is not — as in, not a conventional tour, not a familiar schedule, not 72 holes, not a regular tee time format, not requiring good play for good pay, not on broadcast television, not well-attended by fans, and not deterred by mass executions.

“Only with its third tournament, this one in Florida, was it thrown into sharp relief what LIV actually is.  Not for the first time, true character was revealed courtesy of an embrace by the baby-carrot fingers of Donald J. Trump.”

Lynch reported that LIV’s event at Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey was greeted by what he called “dignified outrage” by families of those killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

They pointed to a U.S. intelligence report declassified in 2021 that suggested Saudi links to the atrocity went far beyond what was previously known — financing Al-Qaeda, spawning 15 of the 19 hijackers — to include government figures from the Kingdom meeting and aiding the terrorists on U.S. soil.

“Yet, when asked about the families’ protest, the former president offered this:  ‘Nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11, unfortunately.’

“The comment exposed how Trump is utterly devoid of honor, but it also illuminated why he is perfectly suited to LIV Golf.  Their shared parallels are as plentiful as they are unflattering.”

Lynch added this list of elements “devoid of honor:”

• Start with the art of obfuscation, practiced at every LIV press conference as both executives and players prevaricate about ongoing abuses by their benefactors.  Their evasions on human rights issues and the bone-saw dismemberment of a regime critic are kin with Trump’s absolving the Saudis of responsibility for the murder of almost 3,000 Americans.  The requirement of those in the pay of the Crown Prince is always to downplay, deflect, dissemble, deceive, but never denounce.
• Then there’s protecting the grift, doing whatever is necessary to ensure the pocketing of other people’s money continues unimpeded.  Both LIV and Trump Inc. are taking us to be dupes.  While Trump collects fees to host tournaments, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, received $2 billion for his new private equity firm from the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund.
• Which leads to the inevitable hornswoggle, the suckering of the credulous with talk of a groundbreaking new commodity that feels more like a revenue play for guys whose liquidity can no longer finance their narcissism.  The brands of Trump and LIV Golf’s CEO Norman are their names, which they have appended to everything from airlines to steaks.  If you’re to persuade a fresh investor to subsidize your swashbuckling self-image, you’d best have new product to pitch.  Golf is their means to that end.

Lynch emphasizes that both Norman and Trump are adept at using personal grievances to fuel their image.

“Trump’s list of perceived injustices is longer than the Beijing phone book and includes the PGA Tour (for leaving his Doral Resort in 2016), the PGA of America (for taking the 2022 PGA Championship from his New Jersey course to Oklahoma after the January 6 sacking of the Capitol), and the R&A (for not taking the Open back to Turnberry while his name is above the door).

“Norman’s well-documented resentment at the Tour dates back decades and is rapidly expanding to include those he deems insufficiently welcoming of his new Saudi-funded venture, like the major championships and the Official World Golf Ranking.  No gripe is too petty to go unvoiced at LIV and that has emboldened its players to speak out about the harsh exploitation they endured, like Phil Mickelson with his media rights and Sergio Garcia with his penalty drops.”

Further, Paul Casey, once an admired UNICEF ambassador – plus a golfer I have liked since I watched him play in college for Arizona — was mute when asked about abuses by those whose check he cashed.  For his part, the newest PGA defector to LIV, Bubba Watson, adopted two children and has been a passionate advocate for the adoption cause, along with his wife.  But now, he will have to reconcile his previous passion with working for a state that has cruelly made adoption illegal.

This conclusion from Lynch:

“What LIV Golf ultimately showcased is something Trump long ago mastered:  The art of theater, of presenting a masquerade to the dissatisfied masses, of promising disruption and reform that it is poorly positioned to deliver.”

Norman and Trump are the new clowns.  They deserve each other.  They have long masqueraded as those interested in the public good when they clearly are out only for themselves.

LIV golf gives Trump and Norman a new platform to aggrandize their status and to boast about how both feel everything revolves around only them – and them only.  Others be damned.

In LIV, with Norman and Trump on the stage, especially together, real golf is the loser.