As golf’s civil war rages on, the PGA Championship has never meant more

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The fourth PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club will have a much different feel than those that preceded it. The game of golf has changed dramatically since the best players in the world last came to Louisville, the result of a Middle Eastern monarch's efforts to use sports investment to legitimize his country on a global scale.

Confused? Welcome to the club. It's kind of like this:

Let's say a foreign government swimming in oil riches needed a public relations win and wanted to get into the horse racing business.

Let's say it showed up in Kentucky and paid a few of the best trainers millions of dollars to bring their prized thoroughbreds to race at Louisville Downs on the first Saturday in May.

It sounds ridiculous, right? The stands would be mostly empty. The atmosphere would be strange. But that's fine, because the results wouldn't really matter. Everyone already got paid. And while the Kentucky Derby would still be held at Churchill Downs, a few of the biggest names in the sport wouldn't be there. Everyone would feel a little cheated — especially the fans.

There, in Louisville terms, is where professional golf sits today.

For most of the year, nine of the top 50 players in the world play on the LIV Golf tour, a controversial venture 100% funded by the investment arm of the Saudi Arabian government. In a veiled effort to wash its oil money and cleanse its reputation, LIV's backers lured players from the PGA Tour with 10- and even 11-figure contracts. The vast majority of the money comes not from playing well and winning events but from simply showing up.

Major champions in the 2024 PGA Championship field at Valhalla Golf Club

Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Sergio Garcia are just a handful of the major champions that took the money and fled the PGA Tour.

"I think what they've done is they've turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position," Tiger Woods said of the first players to join LIV. "… I just don't understand it."

LIV events are only 54 holes played at — by PGA Tour standards — mediocre golf courses. They see extremely low TV ratings and miniscule attendance figures compared to even the most pedestrian PGA Tour events. That's immaterial to the end goal, though. As they've done with Formula 1, English Premier League soccer and plenty of other projects, the goal for the Saudis is simply to involve themselves in legitimate ventures.

So what's felt at times like a hostile takeover of professional golf leaves the sport in crisis. LIV players are no longer allowed to play in PGA Tour events, and their absence has been greatly felt in the week-to-week grind of the tour. The big events aren't quite as big, and the small events can be downright forgettable.

Those who've stayed with the PGA Tour — out of principle, quasi-bribery or an adherence to tradition — will denigrate LIV while readily admitting things aren't great in professional golf. And while a merger between the two sides is likely coming down the road, in many ways, the dam has broken. What once was will never be again.

"It would be much better being together and moving forward together for the good of the game. That's my opinion of it," said Rory McIlroy, one of LIV's biggest critics from the beginning who has since softened his ire in hopes of a compromise. "So, to me, the faster that we can all get back together and start to play and start to have the strongest fields possible, I think, is great for golf."

LIV players can, however, still participate in golf's four major championships: the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and Open Championship. And make no mistake: Sixteen LIV players will be at Valhalla, and several of them can absolutely hoist the Wanamaker Trophy.

Koepka, who won his third PGA Championship last year at Oak Hill Country Club in New York, is a great course fit and known far and wide as a big game hunter. Jon Rahm, LIV's biggest coup, is one of the five best players in the world and won the 2023 Masters. Joaquin Neimann may be playing the best of any LIV player this year and, despite a lack of major championship success, is considered by many a top-15 player in the world.

All that's to say major championships mean more in 2024 than they ever have. It's the only four times all year when you can legitimately argue the best players in the world are competing against each other. This PGA Championship will be a return to the norm and, the golf world can only hope, a look to the future. For four days, the greed and pettiness will give way to an old-fashioned test of elite golf. Things have been turned upside down, but the majors still feel momentous.

So cherish it, golf fans. Louisville will serve as the backdrop for the world's best competing for one of golf's most-coveted prizes. And this year, it has a little something extra.

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