Gene Frenette: Let's hope a great U.S. Open finish washes away stain of LIV money

As the 122nd U.S. Open commences Thursday at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., golf’s version of the Hatfields and McCoys shows little sign of abating.

Barbs between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf Invitational Series — a rogue league funded by the Saudi Arabian government wealth fund that just completed its first tournament outside of London — flew back and forth with ferocity across two continents.

This fascinating cold war is occupying far more air time and print space leading up to the U.S. Open than Tiger Woods’ absence.

Few sports embrace sportsmanship and diplomacy more than golf. But those traits have been on hiatus as the Tour, seeing former members Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia among many choosing to sell part of their souls for a monster money grab with LIV, engages in continuous saber rattling with the defectors.

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The LIV debut won by former Masters champion Charl Schwartzel didn’t exactly open to rave reviews. As one writer from The Guardian put it while observing Thursday’s first round: “Surely it stung the egos of Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter, such celebrated English golfers, to be putting out in front of three men and a dog.”

Meanwhile, as thousands cheered Rory McIlroy in the aftermath of his Canadian Open triumph Sunday, he wasted no time sticking a needle in LIV commissioner Greg Norman, twice reminding everybody his 21st PGA Tour victory allowed him to surpass The Shark.

Seeing as how Norman had accused McIlroy of being “brainwashed” by the Tour, you knew the feisty, four-time major champion from Northern Ireland wasn’t going to let that go without a counterpunch.

When the moderator at his post-victory press conference asked what the Canadian victory meant to him, McIlroy’s first five words were: “And one more than Norman.”

A couple hours before that jab, Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who measures his words as carefully as any speech writer, was given a platform by CBS golf announcer Jim Nantz to have his say on several LIV-related topics.

He treaded carefully with his responses, but a rather smug Monahan also couldn’t resist firing back, saying the Tour wasn’t going to allow Mickelson and those aligning with LIV to “free-ride off our loyal members, the best players in the world.”

One particularly loaded question from Nantz — about a 9/11 coalition of survivors and relatives of those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center sending letters to LIV golfers and expressing outrage for joining a Saudi-backed enterprise — brought out Monahan’s best stinger shot: “I would ask any player that has left, or any player that would ever consider leaving, ‘Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?’"

It’s as close as golf gets to public trash-talking. This is just a notch below mud-slinging on a Jerry Springer show.

Phil faces tough music

That was evident Monday at Phil Mickelson’s incredibly tense U.S. Open press conference. It was all a defiant, guarded Mickelson could do to keep from blowing up at his inquisitors.

He was never asked about trying to become the sixth golfer in history to complete a Grand Slam. Nobody mentioned a word about Mickelson being the oldest major champion at 50 when he captured last year’s PGA Championship.

Nearly every question centered on his decision and the repercussions of joining LIV. A reticent Mickelson looked much like a kid who was caught with his hand in a reported $200 million cookie jar.

The smiling, engaging Phil people have grown accustomed to seeing over the years had vanished. He was completely stoic, seemingly defenseless as many questions — from Tour matters, to reconciling joining LIV and its effect on 9/11 families — made him visibly uneasy. He made no attempt to ease the strained atmosphere with his typical dry or acerbic humor.

Mickelson bristled at some inquiries. He was openly critical of media who asked multiple questions in one breath. Phil clearly stalled at times to gather his thoughts, so as to not make an awkward setting more uncomfortable than it was already.

Still, he knew the day of facing those livid with LIV was coming. Not surprisingly, Mickelson struggled to publicly reconcile his choice of joining LIV — backed by the financial support of the Saudi Public Investment Fund — with all the human-rights atrocities connected to that government.

More than any other golfer, Mickelson is LIV’s indisputable face. Among eight players with a total of 15 major victories, he understood the risks of accepting obscene wealth from the Saudis and the potential damage that might do to his reputation.

So Mickelson took his medicine, addressing all the testy questions with mostly bland answers designed to avoid creating more PR problems for himself.

Just get in, get out, and above all, don’t pull a Jack Del Rio by saying something controversial that will ignite a bigger mess.

When asked about how he expects the Boston crowds at the U.S. Open to receive him after all his polarizing comments in recent months, all Mickelson said was: “whether it’s positive or negative,” it should be an incredible atmosphere.

On his feelings about the 9/11 coalition and its resentment toward players joining the Saudi-backed enterprise, he diplomatically replied: “I respect and I understand their opinions. And I understand that they have strong feelings and strong emotions regarding this choice. And I certainly respect that.”

He later added, like all Americans, he had the “deepest” empathy and sympathy for the victims’ families of those terrorist attacks that had a heavy Saudi connection to them.

A messy divorce with no reconciliation?

At least Phil didn’t try to sugarcoat his reasoning of leaving the Tour for LIV, saying for starters: “There’s an incredible financial commitment.”

He went on about how playing fewer tournaments gave him more time to spend with his family and have “more balance in my life,” including his longtime need to address fixing his gambling issues.

If any press conference in his career actually took a year off Mickelson’s life, this was the one. Phil, known for aggressively attacking golf courses like few other players, was reserved from start to finish. He looked older with his uncharacteristic moustache and facial hair.

While the most high-profile LIV golfer faced a tough inquisition, others like Johnson, DeChambeau and Patrick Reed will also be subject to a media grilling about their defections, along with addressing the narrative that Saudi Arabia is “sportswashing” to deflect attention away from its human-rights violations.

This is the world we now live in. Whenever politics and controversy is attached to a sports story, athletes know the polarizing effect is unavoidable. They have to answer for it, and silence only makes things worse.

We’ll soon find out if the choices made by Mickelson and every LIV golfer subjects them to boos as they walk up to U.S. Open tee boxes. Will he, Johnson and DeChambeau, who told The Golf Channel he "made a business decision" and wants the option of returning to the Tour, hear any cheers for making birdie putts or sticking approach shots close to the pin?

Phil is accustomed to feeling nothing but love from the fans, both for interacting more on the course and taking more time than most to sign autographs.

But this is a U.S. Open unlike any other. There’s a divide in golf at the moment, with plenty of angst directed at players who chose to leave the established golden goose for another rife with negative overtones.

It remains to be seen how long the scars and vitriol of a messy divorce between the Tour and the LIV golf will last. Monahan appeared to close the door on ever welcoming the defectors back. And who knows how long the Saudi government might continue to practically print money for a cause with no defining return on the investment?

The tension infiltrating the golf world appears to be at an all-time high. The timing couldn’t be much worse than this being U.S. Open week.

There's no better way for golf to put aside all this negative drama than a spine-tingling finish at Brookline. Sadly, for now, there’s no peace, no Tiger and no end to the vitriol in sight.

Gfrenette@jacksonville.com: (904) 359-4540

Gene Frenette Sports columnist at Florida Times-Union, follow him on Twitter @genefrenette

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Great U.S. Open finish would help golf wash away stain of LIV money