Irish golfer Padraig Harrington has weighed in on the shock merger of Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf with established European and US tours in a series of tweets that included the claim his “own country thought it was acceptable to lock up unmarried mothers as late as 1996″.
The three time major golf championship winner also said Tuesday’s announcement proved “sports washing works” but was not surprised the merger had occurred.
“Definitely in the financial interest of both sides,” he posted on Twitter, as reaction began to pour in.
The emergence of LIV Golf had sparked a minor civil war in the sport with many marquee names peeled away from traditional competition tours in favour of vast sums of money funded by Saudi Arabia’s wealth fund.
Its forceful entry into the sport prompted accusations it was attempting to “sports wash”, or to clean its often tarnished international reputation by taking a lead role in popular sporting entertainment.
A number of golfers, notably Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods, …