Signing Dustin Johnson to LIV cooked up a storm. Poulter, Westwood, and Garcia generated some tremors. Adding Brooks Koepka was another shockwave. Beloved analyst David Feherty was a blow.
But sneaking into the European dressing room and plucking their freshly announced captain to land directly onto the LIV roster? No Richter scale can measure the devastating effect this has had on world golf, both PGA and European professional tours and most importantly, the Ryder Cup.
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Some time has passed since the shocking announcement of Henrik Stenson stepping down as European Ryder Cup captain. Well, it feels like it. In the currently chaotic world of professional golf, 24 hours can allow for significant changes, and critical junctures, causing shifts in opinion, context, and responsibility.
Once Stenson did step down, becoming the first person ever to pass on the “greatest honour that can be bestowed on any European Tour player,” I expected the replacement to be swift, like changing a tire in the Formula 1 pit stops. Fellow Swede Robert Karlsson has been listed, alongside 1999 Open champion Paul Lawrie and bookies favorite, Luke Donald. former Captain Colin Montgomerie explained the gravity of the situation for the event.
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After losing the captaincy, we all knew the next announcement; the writing was very much on the wall. But seeing Henrik Stenson’s name in the field for the third event in Bedminster was still a shock. The worst part was his written letter of part-excitement, part-apology, shared via Twitter. In it, he claimed that LIV had negotiated that he could have his cake and eat it too – it was allegedly agreed that Stenson could play in the LIV events and stay on as European captain.
I imagine that whether this is true or not makes little difference in the eyes of European, Ryder Cup, and/or golfing fans in general. The reactions have been very negative from players like Eddie Pepperell, Andrew Johnston, and others online, and no doubt the core European players will be questioned at their next press conferences.
So what does this mean?
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Now, Stenson adds nothing to LIV. No media presence, no form, a full six years on from his Open win at Troon, and on the downslope in the World Rankings, dropping 140 places in the last eighteen months.
But he certainly takes something away from the Ryder Cup. And Greg Norman can now claim that LIV Golf is more attractive than the Ryder Cup captaincy. Despite Stenson quoted as saying the captaincy was ‘a dream come true’, he passed on the opportunity. This threatens the biennial event more than anything else.
In addition, many commentators have explained that the acquisition of a sitting captain shows that LIV is no longer growing the game. They are picking it apart, threatening our beloved golfing traditions, ruining the sport and all the rest of it. And this may be true.
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However, we must not give Henrik Stenson the chance to be seen as a victim of LIV-style Machiavellian politics. He is responsible for the subsequent backlash to the Ryder Cup. He knew the risks, and he gambled anyway. It is not ‘poor Henrik’; caught in an impossible scenario. It was a tug of war between juggernauts of the Ryder Cup and the Saudi-backed LIV setup, between his Ryder Cup duties and his back pocket. And he made his choice.
How must the European players feel knowing their captain can be bought off? He is 100% liable for his decisions, no questions asked. Allegedly a $70 million signing-on fee would double his career earnings so far, so on the one hand, you can understand it, and on the other – as a European supporter – you want to perform a certain gesture.
Maybe he was double-crossed by the LIV billionaires as he signed on the dotted line, but he still helped draw up the paperwork, got in the room, and picked up the pen. A zero-sum game suddenly formed, the juxtaposition of injecting some cash into the bank while being simultaneously stripped of arguably his greatest achievement to date and a lot of his fans.
“It’s the greatest honour that can be bestowed on any European Tour player”
Colin Montgomerie discusses the great honour of being chosen as the European Ryder Cup Captain ahead of Henrik Stenson’s role being stripped. pic.twitter.com/z13D8ukIha
— Sky Sports Golf (@SkySportsGolf) July 20, 2022
It wasn’t an accidental circumstance he found himself in because he justifies it at the end of his statement by citing the ‘caliber of player’ as an incentive to participate in LIV and abandon the Ryder Cup captaincy. I’m sure he will have influenced the signing-on fee.
Stenson is not a selfish man, far from it. His Paragolf Series allows disabled children to be taught and participate in the great game, and he has been able to give hundreds of kids in Sweden a head start to golf, through the Stenson Sunesson Junior Challenge. But this action was purely selfish.
As Rob Lee of Sky Sports frankly stated: the cash means more to him than captaining his continent at the greatest golfing rivalry in the world. Stenson would probably garner more respect or receive a lesser backlash – if he stood up and said as much.
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The LIV announcements are losing their shocking nature now that so many players have joined the rival Tour, almost leaving us desensitized to the moral and financial talking points that have littered the headlines for months. Yet, this particular announcement has hit the golfing world the hardest because of the effects it will have on the Ryder Cup, the players, and the overall quality of the event.
The end of the road is difficult to predict, and it seems there may have to be a merger option, or at least an agreement of terms – between LIV and the other professional Tours, which several players have already called for, to stop the ugliness and end the division.
For now, it is apparent that everyone has a price. And Greg Norman knows it.
Cover Image Via TheGuardian
