In 1989 I released a book on the Middle East, “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” and after it came out, my editor, Jonathan Galassi, wanted to know what my next book would be about. I said I wanted to write a book about golf. He looked at me with a puzzled expression and asked, “The Persian Gulf?” “I did not answer. “About golf. Golf.”
I say this to make it clear that I have two passions in life: the Middle East and golf. I was a member of the Beirut Golf and Country Club in 1982 – the only golf course players enjoy when they are in a bunker. I carried Chi Chi Rodriguez’s clubs at the 1970 US Open in Hazeltine. There was a time my friend Neil Oxman and I carried Tom Watson and Andy North’s clubs at the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf seniors tournament, and even though I ran the cart over Andy’s ball in a round of training, we are still friends.
I know golf and I know the Gulf. I know the PGA and I know the MBS, which is why I’m writing today about the controversy that’s gripping professional golf: the creation of a “dissident” tournament spearheaded by Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson and funded by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is commanded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS.
The new tournament was named the LIV Golf International Series. It’s a classic example of idiotic “sport laundering” on the part of the Saudis, with the help of a few heartless professional golfers. In my opinion, it’s bad for golf and even worse for the Saudis. The event is merely drawing attention to something the Saudis are trying to make people forget about – the 2018 assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi – rather than drawing their attention to something they want people to embrace: Saudi Arabia. as a future mecca for sports and entertainment.
If I had an opportunity to speak directly with MBS, I would tell him the following:
Mohammed, you only get one chance to make a second impression and you’re wasting it by going to bed with these rebels, some of whom are among the most obnoxious members of the PGA Tour. But I’m not going to talk about those golfers today. I want to talk about Saudi Arabia.
Your government’s responsibility for the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia and wrote for the Washington Post, is a permanent stain that will never go away. It was an act of unspeakable cruelty against a moderate critic of the regime.
But that’s not to say there’s nothing you can ever do to change the world’s view of your country. What you can still do is continue to push Saudi society, its religious education system, its laws and its labor markets along the path of reform. This would be a very important contribution to his country and to the entire Arab-Muslim world.
The truth is, Mohammed, you are responsible for the most radical social and religious reforms in Saudi Arabia’s modern history: allowing women to drive cars; liberalize the male guardianship system whereby women needed to receive permission from men for a range of work and travel activities; limiting the role of the religious police; allow rock concerts, let women watch soccer matches and allow normal coexistence between girls and boys.
These reforms should have been done a long time ago. And they are still not enough. But none of her predecessors dared to try them, and the changes have been tremendously well-received, especially by young women.
When I visited Saudi Arabia in 2017, a 30-year-old Saudi social entrepreneur told me something about her reforms that stuck in my memory: “We are privileged to be part of the generation that lived the before and after.” Her mother, she said, would never know what it’s like to drive a car. Her daughter will never be able to imagine a day when a woman couldn’t drive. “But I’ll always remember not being able to drive,” she told me.
In December, at the Red Sea International Film Festival held in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, my friend Dina Amer, an American filmmaker of Egyptian origin, showed me her wonderful new work “You Resemble Me”, about the Islamization and radicalization of a young Moroccan French woman who died with one of the leaders of the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. The film made its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. But it had its Middle East premiere in Saudi Arabia, despite dealing with a very nuanced and sensitive topic.
“But I have to point out that the quality and scope of the Saudi film festival was comparable to the best festivals in the world,” Dina told me. “Seeing so many Saudi directors starting to be able to tell their stories was impressive and gave me a lot of hope.” I was amazed when Dina commented that her film was banned in Egypt but received the audience award in Saudi Arabia.
Steven Cook, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank and someone who writes about Saudi Arabia because he actually goes to the country, noted in a recent article: “The Saudi Crown Prince can be hateful” but “there are important changes in the Saudi Arabia that critics often lightly downplay.”
This brings me back to the LIV Golf series. Mohammed, whoever told him that sponsoring a golf tournament to jeopardize the PGA Tour — offering absurd amounts to golfers who are mostly either at the end of their careers or are total strangers — should be summarily fired.
It’s not easy to shell out 1 billion dollars to improve your image and end up with only negative publicity. It’s not easy, but your golf tournament did it. Instead of newspapers talking about all the religious and social reforms undertaken in Saudi Arabia, now the sports pages are talking about his murder of Khashoggi and the involvement of Saudi jihadists in 9/11.
There’s a reason why the most respected tournament players, such as Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Tiger Woods, refuse to participate in their event. They know how to spot a sports wash when they come across it.
So here’s the best golf and gulf tip I can give you: there’s only one way to make the world see Saudi Arabia in a more balanced light, and it won’t cost you a penny.
Give entry visas to any journalist or film crew who wants to go to Saudi Arabia. Tell them they are free to travel anywhere in the kingdom they want and interview any Saudi. Not all reports will be very sympathetic. You will read complaints about the lack of political participation. About the absence of a free press. The brutal detentions of dissidents and various serious human rights violations continue to occur. It’s all there and it’s all real. But you will also see honest journalists who will attest to the far-reaching economic, religious and social transformations your government has unleashed.
It’s the most you can hope for. But it would be a hell of a lot better than wasting billions buying golf professionals who know nothing about their country, who say privately that they despise you and your society, and have no credibility as witnesses to the progress made in the country. Every time they open their mouths to explain – with evident embarrassment – why they are accepting their piles of cash, it seriously harms every young Saudi who fights for change in the country and benefits from it.
Not even his worst enemies in Iran could have come up with a dumber strategy to persuade the world to take a deeper look at Saudi Arabia.
Mohammed, you need to end this LIV business. Cancel. The only ambassadors of any value to you are the young Saudis themselves willing to tell independent journalists that the reforms you have unleashed are profoundly significant to their lives and your region and, while still very small, are vital steps in the right direction. Every day the LIV tournament continues will be another day that takes people’s attention away from this reality.
