LIV And Let Die Book Review

LIV And Let Die Book Review

LIV and Let Die
by Alan Shipnuck
Grade: A
Teacher’s Comments: An important contemporary history

On Amazon.

The relatively recent signing of Jon Rahm to a LIV indenture and the impending deadline for a PGA Tour – LIV rapproachment shows that the saga of the dueling tours still is being written.

In a sense, recent and ongoing events make Shipnuk’s account even more important, for LIV and Let Die chronicles how we have arrived at this point.

As with so many things these days, LIV has divided people into warring camps, neither of which seems to be able to find any redeeming quality in the other. So many PGA TOUR fans view the steady stream of LIV promoting social media posts as nothing but agressive and obnoxious propaganda from an anti-western, unenlightened dictatorship. Meanwhile, any criticism of LIV brings charges of being in thrall to the “corrupt golf media” (an actual, oft-repeated catchphrase) and of somehow not being as smart as the LIV fans who can clearly see through the vast golf conspiracy.

For his part, Shipnuck made the “mistake” of publishing an unguarded quote from Phil Mickelson about the Saudi regime, and then of publishing a book that was not entirely flattering to LIV’s most prominent player (Read GolfBlogger’s review of Phil: The Rip Roarin’ Biography Of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar)

Shipnuck therefore is a leading member of the corrupt golf media, and those in on the “truth” will dismiss his work out of hand.

LIV and Let Die should not be dismissed, however. If you really want to understand how professional golf arrived at this moment, you should read this book. That goes both for PGAT Fanboys and LIV Bots.

Over the course of 350 pages, Shipnuck traces professional golf’s current civil war from the PGA TOUR’s origins in the late 1960s, through Greg Norman’s attempt to start a World Golf Tour in the mid 1990s; Andy Gardiner’s creation of the model that would be appropriated by LIV; and then to the rival tour’s launch by Norman, now fueled by the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

Shipnuck evidently has interviewed hundreds in his research, including players, caddies, coaches, the money men, agents, insiders on both tours and even the WAGs.

My favorite quote in the whole book, from an unnamed agent: “What you have to understand about professional golfers is that they are all whores.”

No one comes out looking good in this. Jay Monahan seems arrogant and more than a little blind, perhaps especially in blowing off Saudi olive branches that could have ended the war shortly after it started. Norman, in Shipnuck’s telling, has some serious daddy issues and a seething grudge against the tour that made his fortune (would things have been different had not famously flittered away those leads?). Tour players who have made the switch look like the worst kind of hypocrites. Those who didn’t often seem to me like brides left at the altar.

I’m not at all sure what to think of golf mover and shaker Jimmy Dunne.

The book’s James Bond referencing title is appropriate, for the story feels a lot like a spy novel, with stolen plans, secret meetings, backchannel contacts and double dealing.

Regardless of your entrenched position on the issue, or how this works out in the end, LIV and Let Die is worth a read for anyone who wants to be fully informed. It is not the last word on the issue — nor even the whole word — but Shipnuck’s work is an essential word.

I’ll end this with a reproach to all who have gotten caught up with the posturing of one side or the other: The golf war is about professional golf. The game we play — whether at private clubs or munis — is largely unaffected by the PGA TOUR – LIV war. I suspect that for the vast majority, whether the PGAT or LIV prevail will have no effect on how much golf we play. For my part, I can’t imagine playing any more or less of the game I love because of the antics of a bunch of millionaire players and their money men.