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It’s time to interrupt out your most interesting polos and bone up on the newest inventory market tendencies as a result of we’re going to the nation clubbing. The Masters are subsequent week, and Wimbledon is in just a few months, however we’ve got information from each, and I don’t wish to write two separate tales, so we’re going to mix and tie them collectively. No, I’m not speaking about dwelling invasions within the suburbs. I’m speaking about villains — particularly, who’re we rooting in opposition to extra: LIV golfers at Augusta, or Russian and Belarusian gamers on the All England Club?
The reply appears easy till you take a look at the small print, so let’s try this.
LIV golfers on the Masters
Cameron Smith, the No. 2 golfer on this planet earlier than he defected to the Saudi Tour and his rating plummeted, shall be among the many 18 LIV golfers to tee it up on the Masters subsequent week. There have been tales from PGA golfers and pundits concerning the Saudi Tour not being actual golf, they usually’re proper.
The upstart league solely has 14 occasions this season, all of that are 54 holes. There’s no reduce in any of them. I don’t know what the format is from course to course, and there are groups.
Well, all of that chatter has Smith’s knickers in a bunch and he’s correct mad. Not certain if that’s how Aussies discuss, so simply learn the quote.
“Most of us will get four cracks at it this year [in the majors], and hopefully we get maybe a win out of it. Maybe we just show a really hearty effort,” Smith mentioned in an interview Thursday. “I think for us, internally, there’s a lot of chatter going around about ‘these guys don’t play real golf anymore.’ And I think it’s B.S. to be honest. And we just want to show people that.”
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Of all the shit that’s been talked about LIV golf and its members, that’s what you’re mad about? People questioning whether a tour with fewer weekends of action than a college football season is “real golf”? I don’t know about you, but I’d be more upset about the people who called me a soulless chum bucket for buying and selling my integrity for blood cash.
This simply proves how insulated golfers actually are, and it’s no shock contemplating their life entails going from unique golf course to unique golf course searching for the approval of a bunch of white guys of their 60s.
Russians and Belarusians at Wimbledon
The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club confirmed Friday that it lifted the ban on Russian and Belarusian gamers at Wimbledon. The ban originated shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the participation of athletes from the supporting international locations stays a controversial matter.
That’s why Wimbledon put some restrictions in place. Players from Russia and Belarus should play as neutrals and can’t present assist for the invasion. Also, anybody who receives Russian and Belarusian funding, together with state-backed sponsorships, shall be prohibited.
Alright, cool. Easy sufficient, proper? So the tennis gamers who present up in early July shall be adequately scrubbed of any ties to the international locations at present occupying Ukraine or abetting in it. As lengthy as they offer the right responses — ones the All England Club simply gave to them — they’re good to go.
Call me naive, but it surely looks like it’d be fairly straightforward to only lie to achieve entry. “Oh, all I need to do is check the right boxes, and I’ll be allowed back at the biggest Grand Slam of the year? Show me what to do and where to sign.”
However, there’s a heavy dollop of ambiguity on the subject of Russian and Belarusian athletes. If each supporter was as overt because the Russian gymnast/zealot who principally heiled Vladmir Putin on the medal stand, it’d be secure to root in opposition to any and all repping Mother Russia or its dopey sidekick.
It’s straightforward to say, “Renounce your government” when your loved ones isn’t inside Putin’s attain although. There are probably many Russians and Belarusians horrified by the actions of their international locations’ leaders, however to talk out is to threat a relative getting disappeared.
The reply to the article
If the one strategy to know which tennis participant to root in opposition to is to know the place every particular person stands on Ukraine — which we don’t know and gained’t have the ability to discover out in truth — it’s actually arduous to color all of them with the identical broad brush that we do the LIV golfers.
Is accepting Saudi cash worse than supporting the invasion of Ukraine? I’m not taking part in that sport of would you quite. Disappointing as that could be (I’m not sorry) if you happen to’re searching for a villain to root in opposition to alongside Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Smith, and Co., take a look at the event organizers themselves.
Augusta was by no means going to bar LIV golfers from taking part in as a result of there are too many massive names. And despite the fact that Wimbledon is making an attempt to do the proper factor, your run-of-the-mill cynic can blast loopholes by their stipulations. There’s no manner of getting the solutions they search, however that didn’t cease them from discovering a strategy to get the very best gamers on this planet on Centre Court.
So, the actual villain right here, as at all times, is grasping capitalists.