The U.S. Open Golf Championship will take place in Los Angeles over the coming days.
What's the bet that not all the talk will focus on the state of the fairways and greens at Los Angeles Country Club.
Suffice it to say that the world of golf has been rocked in recent times by the split in the game arising from the emergence of the Saudi-backed LIV tour.
Suffice it to say that the world of golf has been turned on its head in recent days by the arrival of the Saudis and their sand dune-high stacks of money in the inner sanctums of global professional golf, that being the PGA and its partner the DP World Tour.
For a sport that gets so pious and fussy over rules, decorum and tradition what is happening right now is, for some, a version of barbarians inside the gate.
For others it is an opportunity, and to borrow that dreadful linguistic term, to "grow the game."
For sure the argument back and forth in the days ahead will be vigorous. Rory McIlroy might have to match his considerable stash of golf balls with throat lozenges.
But away from all the golf talk there is another matter and that is Saudi Arabia, its internal affairs and its role in the world.
Amid all the golf chatter we heard this from Terry Strada, national chair of 9/11 Families United.
Strada, according to CNN, has been a long-time critic of the LIV Series and has alleged the Saudi government played a role in the terrorist attacks.
Said Strada, who lost her husband on 9/11: “PGA commissioner Jay Monahan co-opted the 9/11 community last year in the PGA’s unequivocal agreement that the Saudi LIV project was nothing more than sportswashing of Saudi Arabia’s reputation.
“But now the PGA and Monahan appear to have become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation so that Americans and the world will forget how the kingdom spent their billions of dollars before 9/11 to fund terrorism, spread their vitriolic hatred, and finance al Qaeda and the murder of our loved ones. Make no mistake – we will never forget.”
There is a lot of work and negotiation to be done before a final deal is worked out between the various parties, and the U.S. Senate is planning to look into the entire affair.
But it's impossible to ignore Strada's words, and those words will invariably echo through the tented village and across the green sward of Los Angeles Country Club this week.
In the pursuit of ever greater riches, professional golf may well have incurred more bogeys than it can fully cope with on an already besmirched score card.
