Full Virtue Swing

Has the PGA enlisted the "virtue signal" to fully swing at Saudi backed LIV Golf?

Full Virtue Swing - Author’s collection

Netflix’s newest sports docu-series, “Full Swing,” became available to subscribers of the streaming service on Wednesday. The series, from the creators of other popular sports documentary pieces, “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” and “Break Point,” chronicles the 2022 professional golf circuit by following along in behind the scenes fashion. Each episode follows at least one of pro golf’s top stars, as well as other primary moments of last year’s golf season. Sprinkled throughout is the creation of LIV golf and that upstarts poaching, or attempted poaching, of some of the top names from the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA).

For someone who doesn't play or watch golf very often, the handful of episodes I have watched so far have been entertaining. If you’re even mildly interested in the sport, and certainly if you’re a fan of documentaries, you will likely find the series enjoyable. At its best, “Full Swing” provides interesting facets of the lives of pro golfers and catches more natural moments of them with their friends, family and tense aspects of the game. It also captures an interesting time for pro golf. LIV Golf burst onto the scene last year as a new face of pro golf. LIV takes a different, flashier, team based approach to golf.

Founded in 2021, LIV golf’s inaugural season began in the summer of 2022 near London, England. LIV’s large financial backing comes from the government of Saudi Arabia. More precisely, that monetary backing comes from The Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund; a state-owned investment fund valued at $607 billion, making it the sixth largest such fund in the world. Many have decried LIV Golf as a form of “sportwashing.” Sportwashing is when governments use sports, or related activities, to improve their country’s image on the world stage.

Sportswashing seems to be particularly engaged in by country’s who have a poor track record in relation to human rights issues; or other controversial issues from a global, political perspective. Sportswashing has also been used to describe the Saudi deal with Formula One racing, as well as other events from WWE to chess where the Saudis have spent a reported $1.5 billion in efforts to improve their image.. Pundits have declared that all of these sporting events are part of a coordinated campaign by the government to improve its image globally, and to distract from its atrocious human rights record and other regressive policies.

Netflix @netflix

You've never seen golf like this! Full Swing is now on Netflix.

“Full Swing” chronicles some of the derision surrounding LIV Golf and a handful of PGA’s big names associated with the new brand. In episode 3, part of a CNN broadcast is shown where the host says, “Huge controversy swirling around golfer Greg Norman who is defending the creation of this Saudi golf league and brushing off the role of the country and the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, allegedly played in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” There is a bit of a mashup of other broadcasts that talk about how Greg Norman, a retired golfing great and current CEO of LIV Golf, said, “we’ve all made mistakes and you just want to learn by those mistakes and how you can correct them going forward,” when asked about Khashoggi.

Jamal Khashoggi is best described as a journalist and Saudi dissident who continually did his part to cast a bright light on the atrocities being committed by the government of his homeland. Khashoggi journalistic career goes back decades. He even interviewed Osama bin Laden (UBL) on occasion when UBL was fighting the Soviets in the US proxy war against the USSR in Afghanistan. The two became friends even, and it was Khashoggi who tried to convince UBL to return to The Kingdom at one point. Khashoggi was conflicted over their friendship and tweeted about his tearful mourning of UBL after his confirmed killing as well as his recognition that UBL had given in to his anger and passion.

Fred Ryan, publisher of the Washington Post, of which Khashoggi reported for prior to his murder, recently said, “Jamal was brutally murdered on the orders of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. His only offense was exposing corruption and oppression among those in power – work that good journalists around the world do every day.” Those who expose corruption and oppression by the ruling class are a rare breed who risk much to cast a light in the darkest places. The places that are purposely left dark and untouched because too many are too afraid to shine the light, and a powerful few have too much control to keep those places darkly hidden. Jamal Khashoggi paid sought to brightly light the truth and paid for it with his life.

By any reasonable estimate, Khashoggi was the type of journalist any country should be proud of. Like any human, Khashoggi was mysterious in his convictions and beliefs. How could someone who advocated for women’s rights, such as being allowed to drive, in Saudi Arabia also be close to perhaps the most infamous terrorist of all time, and tearfully lament his passing? Most of us will likely never understand how Khashoggi rationalized these seemingly contradictory beliefs. Nonetheless, it seems clear that he was taken out by the government of his homeland for continually speaking out against them and their policies.

“Full Swing” also incorporates some footage from a LIV Golf press conference in which some of the golfers who made the switch from PGA to LIV are asked about how the journey that Saudi Arabia is on is “helping the women oppressed in Saudi Arabia, the migrant groups, their rights violated, LGBTQ individuals who are criminalized, the families of the 81 men who were executed in March, and those being bombed in Yemen?” A short time later a reporter asks, “If Vladimir Putin had a tournament, would you play there?” Jay Monohan, Commissioner of the PGA Tour, is also shown at a press conference saying that players who stay on the PGA Tour, find themselves in a place where they are not “having to wrestle with any sort of moral ambiguity.”

On a long enough timeline, all governments have a poor track record in relation to human rights and/or controversial political decisions. Some of that has been catalogued on this substack. Government’s entanglement’s with big tech, the FBI trying to get MLK to kill himself, MOCKINGBIRD, COINTELPRO, etc. Or is the line where a government crosses into human rights violations only assassination, as in the case of Jamal Khashoggi? If that’s the case, the US is off the hook right? Right? What about Qassem Suleimani? Oh that’s right, he was an enemy, so it’s ok to assassinate him. Ok, what about UBL? Oh yeah, enemy again, so we’re good.

What about Patrice Lumumba, Mohammed Mossadegh, Kim Koo or Orlando Letelier, to name a few? At the time of their deaths, they were enemies? Maybe. Or at least in the way of other US backed interests/goals, so we’re probably good there too. So assassination of a sovereign nation’s enemies must not be the reason since no one lambasts the US when we assassinate our enemies. What about the 275,000 - 306,000 civilians who have died from direct war related violence in Iraq, which remember was based on the false WMD lie the nation and whole world was sold on? Maybe that still isn’t enough. What about US drone strikes which have killed somewhere between 900-2200 civilians and 280-450 children across the globe? Well, those drone strikes often killed our enemies too, so sometimes people just get a raw deal I guess.

All I’m trying to point out is that those reporters, wealthy commissioners of the PGA, advertisers, CNN talking heads, or whoever else chimes in on LIV Golf, the geopolitics of Saudi Arabia and human rights violations should probably look in the mirror more often rather than point the finger elsewhere because the world or their cohost perceive the civil rights violations of other countries as “worse” than those of our own. Simply put, governments and heads of state make decisions that they believe are in the best interest of their country. The US droning Suleimani and sending Navy SEALs into Pakistan to kill UBL was in the best interest of the US. Suleimani’s and bin Laden’s families and many jihadists around the world disagree with that, just as most people reading this do about the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia and the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi.

Credit - Netflix. Watch “Full Swing” here.

Postscript

I was working on a post about the TSA, since they’ve been on my mind since traversing through some airports last week, but I didn’t have it quite together or where I wanted it to be. So, here’s to next week I reckon! Let me know what you thought about this one. A bit different, but was fun for me. Hopefully you’ll have found it interesting to some degree too.

Here’s a longer documentary about Khashoggi, for those who may be interested.