Source: Politics<\/p>\n
MIAMI \u2014 Jordan Gilbert, a professional golfer, had always felt a little out of place at PGA Tour events.<\/p>\n
It was for the rich \u201ccountry club kids,\u201d said Gilbert, as he paused along the Trump National Doral grounds. His wife, Allie, explained that he didn\u2019t fit in at the PGA because \u201che’s patriotic.\u201d<\/p>\n
For them, like many others who gathered here over the weekend, LIV Golf provided an antidote to all that. It was an everyman\u2019s event \u2014 the populist version of a golf tour. Its chief executive, Greg Norman, was a swashbuckler as a player who would prove to be an iconoclast as a tour leader. It was a place where people like Gilbert could be less buttoned up, less shy about their politics.<\/p>\n
As evidence, Gilbert, who was not playing this weekend, sported a \u201cLet\u2019s Go Brandon\u201d shirt while near the first hole.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me honestly, PGA Tour did Trump dirty whenever they took the tour away from here,\u201d Jordan said, referencing the tour\u2019s decision to move an event from Trump\u2019s Doral course years ago.<\/p>\n
Allie Gilbert wasn\u2019t wearing garb mocking the current White House occupant. She had on a LIV Golf T-shirt instead. \u201cNinety-nine percent of the community here\u201d were Donald Trump supporters, she offered, saying she couldn\u2019t understand why the PGA made the move. \u201cI just don\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like many things that the former president touches, professional golf is quickly fracturing along the fault line of whether or not one backs Trump. LIV Golf, the Saudi-bankrolled tour that roiled the worlds of golf and Washington alike, is becoming the vehicle for that litmus test.<\/p>\n
The Doral resort, which Trump purchased in 2012, had hosted a PGA event for more than 50 years until the organization announced in 2016 it was moving the event to Mexico because of issues finding sponsorship. LIV and its eye-popping event prizes have filled the holes.<\/p>\n
The new tour has hosted a number of different events at non-Trump owned courses. But its highest profile ones have been at the sites he owns in Bedminster, N.J., and Doral, the site of this season\u2019s finale.<\/p>\n
Beyond that, LIV\u2019s rebranding of golf bears some resemblance to how Trump framed his own recasting of national politics: a self-described outsider, rechristening the traditional approach with something more brash, gaudy and anti-establishment.<\/p>\n
Throughout the weekend, skydivers affixed to red, white and blue parachutes descended over the course. Tour staffers threw free t-shirts into the audience, and Justin Timberlake\u2019s \u201cSexyBack\u201d blared through speakers. The rapper Nelly performed \u201cRide Wit Me\u201d to a raucous crowd. A man in sparkly silver pants juggled clubs on a unicycle. Free mullet haircuts were available at a station on the grounds.<\/p>\n
The presence of Trump, who often touted America first, was ubiquitous throughout the Saudi-funded tournament. Some attendees said they came, in part, to support the former president.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in D.C. on Jan. 6th!\u201d one young man shouted near a bar. Spectators donned \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d caps \u2014 or could buy MAGA hats for $36 a piece at the golf store.<\/p>\n
With its massive amounts of prize money and unrelenting efforts to recruit top talent, LIV\u2019s aim has been to challenge what it sees as the PGA\u2019s monopoly. It\u2019s done so through business means and cultural ones, too, pitching itself as the inverse of the stiff and stuffy version of a sport whose audience has long been affluent, older men.<\/p>\n
As it\u2019s pursued its mission, the tour has taken steps to manage the political fallout. It has enlisted political and public relations bigwigs to guide its communications. Those include a subsidiary of Edelman, the Arlington firm McKenna & Associates, which has provided management consulting services, and the lobbying firm Hobart Hallaway & Quayle Ventures, which counts former Rep. Benjamin Quayle (R-Ariz.) among its partners.<\/p>\n
One of the unstated goals of this outreach is to try and protect the tour from criticism that it\u2019s a vehicle for the Saudi government to improve its image in America.<\/p>\n
LIV rejected POLITICO\u2019s request for media credentials, in effect blocking a reporter from watching Trump play and from attending official news conferences, on grounds that it was a sporting event that just happened to have a former president as a host.<\/p>\n
\u201cLIV Golf is a pro sports league and our event credentialing policy naturally prioritizes golf, sports, and local media,\u201d the tour said when asked for a comment explaining its reasoning. \u201cWe regularly provide complimentary grounds passes to other media, even those who don\u2019t wish to cover golf.\u201d<\/p>\n
But despite those efforts, it was difficult to keep any real distance between the golf and the political climate while at Doral. Trump, for one, told reporters Thursday at LIV\u2019s pro-am round<\/a> that the PGA had made a mistake in its dealings with the Saudis, calling those behind LIV \u201cvery good people with unlimited money.\u201d<\/p>\n