Maybe in a decade, we’ll all think of Saudi Arabia as a pleasant land of caddies and duffers, a desert golf oasis — like Scottsdale, Ariz, but with hundreds of ultra-rich royal princes.
For the time being, though, the kingdom has a rather different reputation — one that the wild latest twist of its foray into big-time golf has done nothing to allay. The stories about Tuesday’s out-of-the-blue merger between the PGA Tour and its Saudi-backed upstart rival LIV Golf were all full of words you’d rather banish if your goal is rebranding a problematic monarchy: “September 11,” “hijackers,” “Jamal Khashoggi,” “human rights abuses,” “dismemberment” and other tourist-unfriendly terms.