At the centre of much of the LIV Golf controversy in 2022 was Northern Irishman Graeme McDowell.
The 2010 US Open champion was among the most outspoken of those players to join the PIF-backed breakaway series, and found himself in hot water over comments which seemed to try and distance the tour from the Saudi Arabian regime funding it.
This weekend, the LIV Golf League will visit the Centurion Club in London for the second time, just over a year on from the club holding the first ever LIV event in June 2022.
Speaking to the Bunkered Golf Podcast this week, Graeme McDowell spoke about that first event in London, and how he felt he had stuck his foot in it with his early comments on golf's newest and most contentious tour.
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LIV Golf: Graeme McDowell regrets early comments
When LIV Golf was established ahead of its maiden season, there was much controversy over its sporting decisions - shotgun starts, the pace of play, the team format - but most of the controversy was dictated by the enormous sums of money involved, and the source of said money.
The tour's links to Saudi Arabia led to understandable questions about the morality of the tour, and players who signed up to play in the series were subject to regular questions on the matter.
4 July 2022; Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland on the seventh during day one of the JP McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor Golf Club in Adare, Limerick. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
One of those players was Graeme McDowell, who earned criticism on multiple occasions for his comments on Saudi Arabia's human rights record. On one occasion, he was questioned on the death of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist murdered by Saudi government agents in 2018 - and his response was tone deaf, to say the least:
The Khashoggi situation, we all agree that was reprehensible. No-one’s going to argue that fact, but we’re golfers.
I really feel golf is a force of good in the world and I love using the game of golf as something to help grow around the world and be role models to kids. We’re not politicians.
If Saudi Arabia want to use the game of golf as a way for them to get to where they want to be, I think we’re proud to help them on that journey, using the game of golf and the abilities we have to help grow the sport.
Needless to say, what was already a huge backlash became even bigger at the time.
McDowell has spoken about those first few months of LIV Golf on this week's Bunkered Golf Podcast. The Portrush native says that he regretted speaking his mind on the situation involving Saudi Arabia, and said that he should have followed the lead of other LIV players such as Dustin Johnson in admitting his reasoning for joining the tour.
He said that he had found the opening months of LIV Golf difficult due to the vitriol coming his way for joining the series:
It's been tough. Going into the London event 12 months ago - as we move into it [again] next week - it was a very, very difficult time for individual players. I think - I can only speak for myself personally - I was coming in to a start up company, coming in to an opportunity which was new and unknown, but it felt right for me at that stage of my career from a financial point of view.
London was a very difficult week, it was very controversial. I try to represent the tour that I was playing with at LIV as best I could at the time, answering unanswerable questions. Trying to do the best I could, and failing miserably in my people's eyes.
I look back at it...shoulda went with the Dustin Johnson and just said, 'yeah man!'
Unfortunately, to my detriment...well, it's been a positive most of my career that I talk a lot, and generally talk sense, I feel like. It was to my detriment around the time that LIV was kicking off, when the more you talked, the more you incriminated yourself in the eyes of the media that wanted to incriminate LIV.
It was a very, very tough time, a very controversial time. I'd be lying to you if I said I enjoyed the first few months of LIV. I enjoyed the golf and I enjoyed what I was trying to achieve, but I found it very difficult to be comfortable in the environment, because people hated it so much on so many levels.
Here I am 12 months later, and I feel like I'm in a great place, from a personal and mental point of view.
McDowell and his LIV compatriots have six more events ahead of them in 2023, with events in London and Jeddah either side of four in the United States.
They also have a merger with the PGA and DP World Tours to prepare for in the coming months, with McDowell again talking up the Saudi involvement in the future of the game of golf:
It was a place in the game that we all hoped that we might get to one day, where we can all come together as a unit, as a game of golf - you've got the PIF who wanna spend tonnes of money in the sport, so let's give them the platform to do that on, where we can be inclusive and deploy that cash the right way, rather than fracturing the game because it doesn't suit everyone.
Featured image: Sportsfile
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