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OPINION: The Saudi International Is Bad, So Please Don’t Watch, OK?

saudi international @Thorbjornolesen

Even for a sport that frequently doesn’t give a damn about people outside the game, the European Tour is really outdoing itself this week.

On Thursday, a star-studded field will put their pegs in Royal Greens Golf and Country Club, for the first-ever Saudi International event. For reasons already well explained (such as by Brandel Chamblee on Golf Central), it’s a shame.

Saudi Arabia is one of the most oppressive regimes in the world. Women live in subjugation; religious minorities face constant harassment, and dissidents are arbitrarily jailed — or worse, as Jamal Khashoggi would tell you (if he could).

Saudi Arabia is not a regime to be celebrated, or welcomed into the community of nations. It’s not interested in joining the community of nations. Until that changes, it should be shunned.

The fact that the European Tour — generally regarded as forward-looking and savvy — could have overlooked the public relations landmine is astonishing.

But more disappointing has been the complacenecy of players.

“I’m not a politician, I’m a pro golfer,” Justin Rose said on Sunday. “There’s other reasons to go play it” (like, say, the reported $5.2 million paid out in appearance fees).

Dustin Johnson, who also will be in the field in King Abdullah Economic City (the real name of a real city), had a remarkably similar response: “I’m not a politician. I play golf.”

For decades, this has been a favorite “rebuttal” of Tour players who don’t want common decency getting in the way of their payday: in 1990, Fuzzy Zoeller defended the PGA Championship’s hosting at Shoal Creek (still an all-white club at the time) in almost identical terms: “I play golf, not politics,” he said.

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Rose, Johnson, and Bryson DeChambeau (whose defense of playing the event was equally lukewarm: “I don’t think it’s a bad decision as long as they want us there. That’s what I’ve heard — they want us there.”) are right, of course: they’re just golfers. They don’t make laws, they just follow them in the countries where they play (sometimes…right DJ?).

But for top-ranked players like Rose, Johnson, and DeChambeau, there were other options. They could have avoided all of this at the PGA Tour’s Waste Management Open, with its nothing-to-sneeze-at $7.1 million purse.

Obviously, the Waste Management Open doesn’t come with an appearance fee. But the winner’s check isn’t paid with blood money, either.

For some golf fans, none of this will matter. Sports are an escape, and plenty of fans have no qualms about detaching their enjoyment of an event from the messy circumstances surrounding it. If that’s the way you look at the world, then fine. Nothing I say is going to change your mind.

But for those who can’t ignore context, there’s really only one option: you can’t watch. As an individual fan, your power to affect the European Tour’s blood pressure is virtually nonexistent. To the extent you have any power at all, it’s purely tied up in what your eyeballs are pointed at.

And honestly, what better way to stick it to a regime run by religious zealots than by supporting a tournament whose entire gimmick is that it’s an enormous drunk fest?

About the author: Will Bardwell is a lawyer by day and moonlights as a contributor for Two Inches Short. He enjoys wide fairways, playing from the white tees, and accidentally hitting approach shots thin when he didn’t realize he under-clubbed. Follow him on Twitter at @willbardwell.

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