The America First movement finds a partner in the Saudi-funded tour.
MIAMI — Jordan Gilbert, a professional golfer, had always felt a little out of place at PGA Tour events.
It was for the rich “country club kids,” said Gilbert, as he paused along the Trump National Doral grounds. His wife, Allie, explained that he didn’t fit in at the PGA because “he’s patriotic.”
For them, like many others who gathered here over the weekend, LIV Golf provided an antidote to all that. It was an everyman’s event — 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.
As evidence, Gilbert, who was not playing this weekend, sported a “Let’s Go Brandon” shirt while near the first hole.
“To me honestly, PGA Tour did Trump dirty whenever they took the tour away from here,” Jordan said, referencing the tour’s decision to move an event from Trump’s Doral course years ago.
Allie Gilbert wasn’t wearing garb mocking the current White House occupant. She had on a LIV Golf T-shirt instead. “Ninety-nine percent of the community here” were Donald Trump supporters, she offered, saying she couldn’t understand why the PGA made the move. “I just don’t get it.”
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.
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.
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’s finale.
Beyond that, LIV’s 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.
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’s “SexyBack” blared through speakers. The rapper Nelly performed “Ride Wit Me” 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.
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.
“I was in D.C. on Jan. 6th!” one young man shouted near a bar. Spectators donned “Make America Great Again” caps — or could buy MAGA hats for $36 a piece at the golf store.
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- Discussion
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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. https://t.co/qU1dmeLUjU
— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) October 31, 2022
And like just about every other business and political endeavor, Trump will run LIV into the ground.
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