Stenson’s bittersweet win at LIV earned him a tidy sum, but his reputation suffers

A new world golf project called the LIV Golf Invitation knows its third champion in its inaugural year. Swedish-born Henrik Stenson won at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster course on the doorstep of New Jersey, his first ever appearance in the much-discussed event. But golf fans are asking him the question – was it worth it?

Henrik Stenson has had a very wild season. Until recently, he was proud to be awarded the captaincy of the Ryder Cup next year. Then, despite public pressure, he decided to leave the PGA Tour to join the rebel LIV Golf Tour, which has been heavily criticised for being subsidised by public money from Saudi Arabia.

Still, a smile could be seen on the Swedish golfer’s face on Sunday night, although his normally cold look had earlier earned him the nickname “Ice man”, meaning ice man, from fans.

Just a week after being relieved of his captaincy for the 2023 Ryder Cup, he won the Bedminster Invitational, the third event in the history of the newly born Saudi LIV Golf League.

Players are switching to it primarily for the lucrative earnings that the prestigious PGA Tour cannot afford to offer, not to mention the very fat signing bonus. For winning the Bedminster Invitational, Stenson cashed in a fabulous $4 million payday.

He’ll split another $1.5 million with his teammates, as LIV Golf also offers a team competition for variety. The American media refers to the sum of Stenson’s earnings in recent weeks as “general wealth”.

However, the harshest tax Stenson has to pay for the trump card cannot be quantified in any monetary value. He has consistently faced questions about morality, ethics or loyalty as the origin of the money earned by players at LIV Golf has been heavily criticised and called “blood money” from a country that grossly violates human rights.

This is especially the case in New Jersey, near Manhattan, where the largest terrorist attack on US soil in modern history occurred in 2001. Moreover, the investigation has revealed that 15 of the 19 people involved in the series of bloody attacks on 11 September 2001 came from Saudi Arabia.

All Stenson said on the subject on Thursday before the tournament was, “Yes, I think we can just say that our hearts go out to everyone who lost a loved one in this terrible tragedy. That’s all we can say, really,” GolfDigest quoted the Swedish golfer as saying.

His blunt statement stirred the crowd so much that several spectators went straight to the course to protest former US President Donald Trump, who publicly endorsed the event on the same day.

Stenson has also been criticised for publicly stating back in March that he was not going to join LIV Golf under any circumstances:: ‘Yes, there has been a lot of speculation. But as I said, I am fully committed to the captaincy and the Ryder Cup in Europe and the job that awaits me here,” he spoke at the time. That’s also why he was awarded the Ryder Cup captaincy.

Now the Swedish golfer says of losing the prestigious position, “I don’t feel like giving it up.I have made all possible arrangements to be able to fulfill my captaincy duties. I had a lot of help here from the LIV to be able to do that. And yet the decision was made that I would be removed,” Stenson speaks uncomprehendingly.

The golfing world that Henrik Stenson occupies these days is in many ways the absolute antithesis of the moral principles of the Ryder Cup. That is also why the organisers had virtually no mercy on him. Moreover, many fans believe that the decision Stenson made recently was purely about money.

There is no profit in the Ryder Cup. It is one of the last events in the world of sport where pure prestige plays first fiddle in all respects. And if Stenson has said that captaining the Ryder Cup means a lot to him, his move to join LIV Golf is a very sad decision according to fans.

But now Stenson has celebrated a triumph at Bedminster that makes him forget those things, at least in part. Uncharacteristically after the tournament, he gave out smiles, jokes and was brimming with uncharacteristically good humour by his standards. Golf-wise, he really enjoyed the past week for the first time in a long time. However, many fans and journalists will continue to ask him if it was all worth it.

Source:: LIV Tour, GolfDigest