PGA Tour on notice as Saudi-backed league makes its big move

The Saudi golf invasion is real.

Now what?

After the Greg-Norman-led LIV Golf Invitational Series, backed by a seemingly endless pool of money from Saudi Arabia, revealed the players in the field for the tour’s first event, to be played next week outside of London, the PGA Tour is next up on the tee.

A high-stakes game of chicken, which for months has represented nothing more than a lot of shadow boxing with the lack of any big-name golfers committed to the new venture, took a more serious turn with the revelation Tuesday that Dustin Johnson’s name is on that first field list.

That was, no doubt, jarring to the PGA Tour — not only because the 37-year-old Johnson is ranked 13th in the world, has won 24 times on the PGA Tour (including two major championships) and is one of the tour’s biggest stars, but also because Johnson, in February, publicly pledged his allegiance to the PGA Tour in favor of the LIV Golf series.

Apparently, however, that Saudi money spoke to Johnson, who according to a report by the United Kingdom outlet The Telegraph, was offered about $125 million to join its series of events. Now that Johnson has reversed field and taken the money, it hardly seems out of the question others will follow.

Back in March, buoyed and emboldened by the public allegiance to the PGA Tour from its top players (including Johnson), commissioner Jay Monahan spoke confidently about his product and the discipline that would be levied on players who competed on the LIV tour, punishments that could be as harsh as a permanent ban.

Whether or not Monahan and the PGA Tour have the legal right to control where players, who believe they are independent contractors, choose to play is another matter entirely — one that surely would be decided by a court of law.

But Johnson has boldly pushed that envelope across the table at Monahan, who issued a statement, in reaction to the LIV field announcement Tuesday, that didn’t say anything that hadn’t been stated before.

There are many layers to this, not the least of which is how other organizations will react to players who take the Saudi money.

Sponsors are already disassociating themselves from players who have committed to the first LIV event. The Royal Bank of Canada, for which both Johnson and Graeme McDowell (also playing in next week in London) were ambassadors, on Wednesday severed ties with those players. There have been other cases as well, including UPS dropping Lee Westwood and Louis Oosthuizen, who both committed to the initial LIV event.

Fallout may also affect the coming Ryder Cup competitions because several high-profile players who are at the top of the list as future captains for both the U.S. and Europe are playing in the LIV events: Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter and Westwood on the European side and possibly Phil Mickelson, expected by many in the golf world to be the next splashy announcement by Norman, on the U.S. side.

What about the governing bodies for the major championships? Will they ban players from competing in their events should those players play in the LIV events?

For example, Mickelson has won the Masters three times and Johnson has won it once, which means both are eligible to play until they’re 60. Would Augusta National bar those players from returning if they play in the Saudi events?

The PGA of America oversees both the PGA Championship and the U.S. Ryder Cup side. Its CEO, Seth Waugh, has been aligned with Monahan throughout this process, as has the European Tour. Would those governing bodies ban players from their top events?

Rory McIlroy, a 20-time winner on the PGA Tour and a four-time major champion who’s a member of the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Council, said he doesn’t believe the PGA Tour needs to “drop the hammer’’ in disciplining the players who’ve chosen to play in the London event.

“Look, they are well within their rights to enforce the rules and regulations that have been set,’’ McIlroy said of the PGA Tour. “But … it’s going to end up being an argument about what those rules and regulations are. I have some very close friends that are playing in this event in London and I certainly wouldn’t want to stand in their way for them to do what they feel is right for themselves.’’

There will be many more layers to peel back as this drama plays out. But this much is clear: The Saudi golf thing is now real, and it doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.