Irish Examiner view: Good guys win

Lowry victory

Shane Lowry lifts the trophy after winning the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.

Shane Lowry’s ‘victory for the good guys’ at Wentworth in Sunday’s PGA Championship showcase event of the DP World Tour was not only a much-needed win for the Irishman but also for the two main golf tours which are currently trying to fend off the increasingly mendacious and dollar-laden Saudi-backed rebel LIV Tour.

Seventeen members of the LIV Tour turned up at Wentworth — to a chorus of scorn and opprobrium — and, much to the horror of both the PGA Tour and its European-based ally, the DP World Tour, two of them, Patrick Reed and Talor Gooch, made a good stab at winning it.

Barbs between those representing golf’s status quo and the rebels raged back and forth all week — highlighting the growing rift between golf’s main organisations and its loyal players against those who have ‘taken the Saudi dollar’.

The eventual winner was not sparing of his former colleagues, saying they were “disruptive”, and he couldn’t “stand them being here”.

Both Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, who tied for second place, were equally disparaging. McIlroy stated bluntly the LIV players “shouldn’t be here”, while Rahm pointed out that LIV players were taking slots from young Europeans.

The Spaniard’s point was well made, especially when his compatriot, former Ryder Cup colleague and current LIV flag-bearer Sergio Garcia, inexplicably withdrew from the event after he shot a four-over-par 76 on the opening day.

Rahm highlighted that another young Spaniard, Alfredo Garcia-Heredia, was the first reserve at Wentworth and if Garcia withdrew prior to the event, the young man could have played and potentially garnered ranking points.

That Garcia was seen on Saturday at a college football game in Texas only added affront to the hurt.

Lowry’s comments that his win was one “for the good guys” shows how poisonous golf’s civil war has become, and how relations are likely to further deteriorate.