On the eve of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, I submitted a smug column predicting that absurd candidate Donald Trump would finally get his comeuppance in a Hilary Clinton landslide.
I made no secrets of my dislike for Trump. It wasn’t that I disagreed with his policies – whatever they were. Nor was it his general bravado, or at least what I determined it to be from a distance – the closest I ever came to him was a trip to the Trump Tower toilet on 5th Avenue when I was almost caught short on my J1. Fine facilities in fairness.
Rather it was Trump’s well-documented penchant for perverting the rules of golf that ground my gears – the alleged ‘Commander in Cheat’ said to be about as trustworthy as his chum, Kim Jong Un when it came to keeping score. The idea that he would be handed the nuclear codes of the most powerful nation on earth was about as believable as his two-handicap.
See, up until that point, Trump was just an unusually orange reality TV tycoon who fired people on The Apprentice and built golf resorts. Presidents were meant to be, well, Presidential, or at least political. I went to bed as cocksure of a Clinton inauguration as I was of the sun rising.
Then I awoke to a full moon. Rewrote the article and questioned just about everything I’d come to know to that point. I wasn’t going to be so naive this time around.
Sadly I’ve come to begrudgingly accept that we’re living in an upside down world and Trump’s unlikely election felt like the tipping point; a protest vote hot on the heels of a bamboozling Brexit decision as political alignment shot right and left with no room for the middle man. Now, depending on which side of that line you reside, you’ll be living a very different reality. The algorithm will serve you up one side of a story. LIV has either saved the game of golf, or been its ruination.
It’s hard to know what, much less who, to believe anymore. Harder still to feel surprised. Which is why I hardly batted an eyelid when I heard Bryson DeChambeau’s name being called like Ferris Bueller’s amidst Trump’s early, though accurate, declaration of victory. DeChambeau joining him on stage in his black MAGA hat having helped humanise Trump in his Breaking 50 YouTube series. And still there’s people out there who maintain sport and politics don’t mix.
For what it’s worth, Rory McIlroy thinks Trump’s Presidency could unite the clans at Tour HQ and LIV, now that the POTUS has “smartest man in the world” Elon Musk clinging to his coattails. I must admit I cringed when I heard McIlroy come out with his latest soundbite, but far be it from me to impinge on free speech. I just don’t see Musk, who previously backed Conor McGregor for the Presidency of Ireland, as having the required know-how to bring the energy sapping negotiations with the Saudis to an end. Much less the IQ of a genius. The only genius thing he’s ever accomplished in my opinion, is convincing people like McIlroy to put him on a pedestal.
That’s not to say Trump won’t have an impact but unlike Musk’s Mars ambitions, this isn’t rocket science. It’s in Trump’s interests to Make Golf Great Again and nobody’s more invested in Trump’s interests than Donald J Trump.
Indeed, there’s every chance he’ll accelerate a PGA Tour-LIV merger and while I’d like to believe such an agreement wouldn’t make people forget those who dragged us into this mess in the first place, I won’t be so naive there either. Just look at Trump, back from the dead for four more years despite facing 34 felony charges, inciting an insurrection, impeachment, sex scandals and uttering enough slurs to cancel a small country.
Suddenly a few golfers accepting a bit of Saudi hush money doesn’t seem so bad.