Rory McIlroy has revealed he had “a frank discussion” with Jordan Spieth after the American declared the PGA Tour no longer needed to strike a deal with the Saudis.
Spieth’s comments in the wake of a £2.4 billion investment in the Tour by a US consortium led by the owners of Liverpool disappointed McIlroy so much that he quit a group chat featuring the circuit’s best players.
Once LIV’s biggest critic, McIlroy, who three months ago resigned from the Tour’s policy board after “feeling like I was just banging my head against the wall” has recently been adamant that without the £700 billion Public Investment Fund as a partner, there will be no unity in the professional male game.
And Spieth’s flippant dismissal clearly worried the world No 2 in this regard. “The short answer is we don’t have to [bring them on board],” Spieth said, when asked about the necessity to strike peace with PIF.
That does not sit well with McIlroy, as he explained to Sports Illustrated. “Having PIF as your partner as opposed to not having them as your partner, I don’t think is an option for the game of golf,” McIlroy said. “I think they’re committed to investing in golf and in the wider world of sport and if you can get them to invest their money the right way to unify the game of golf.”
Negotiations are ongoing between the Tour and PIF, although after last Tuesday’s announcement of the partnership with the Strategic Sports Group, the ball is plainly in the Saudis’ court.
“If I were PIF hearing that, it wouldn’t have made me too happy”
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of PIF, has assured the LIV golfers the breakaway league will continue and could well decide to abandon the “framework agreement” signed alongside the Tour and the DP World Tour last summer.
Having spent more than £500 million in the last month on new captures – including Ryder Cup heroes Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton – Al-Rumayyan has signalled his intention to keep strengthening the LIV roster and if he does choose to keep going it alone, the sport will obviously remain fractured.
McIlroy believes that Spieth’s statements risk forcing Al-Rumayyan’s hand. “I talked to him [Spieth] about his comments, and we had a pretty frank discussion,” McIlroy said. “My thing was if I’m the original investor that thought that they were going to get this deal done back in July, and I’m hearing a board member say that, you know, we don’t really need them, now, how are they going to think about that, what are they gonna feel about that?
“They are still sitting out there with hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, that they’re gonna pour it into sport, and I know what Jordan was saying… but if I were PIF and I was hearing that, the day after doing this SSG deal, it wouldn’t have made me too happy.”
we millennials have never learnt how to keep house
A couple of weeks ago, visiting my mother’s house, I picked up a book on the kitchen table – Clean and Green by former Great British Bake Off winner Nancy Birtwhistle. It was a revelation. You can make laundry detergent from conkers, says Birtwhistle. You can whiten yellowing pillow covers with citric acid and table salt. Bicarb can be used for almost everything: smelly clothes, stained tea mugs, sticky labels on jars, you name it. You can freshen up the dishwasher by throwing in a couple of lemon halves (in a bag to catch errant pips) and then running it hot, explains Birtwhistle, who adds that she always does this before she goes on holiday (“Darling, come on, have you got the passports?” “Hang on, just popping the lemons in the dishwasher!”). Her list of how often one needs to do certain household chores was mind-blowing. Wooden spoons need to be sanitised once a month, instructs Birtwhistle; ovens should be deep-cleaned twice a year. Windows should be cleaned every month (what?), while loos and dishcloths should be cleaned every day.
How does one learn this stuff? How have I reached my age without knowing more? It feels sluttish, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, to have drifted through life buying Dettol to wipe my kitchen counters down after making supper but not thinking much beyond that.
Presumably this is why Mrs Hinch and other “cleanfluencers” have taken off on social media. Very few of us have been taught that white vinegar can clean the spots of rust on a shower head, or that a toothbrush is a useful implement to clean skirting boards. If only we still were. There’s endless discussion nowadays of the benefits of mindfulness and meditation apps to try and calm everyone’s raging anxieties, but do you know what’s mindful and meditative and easy to do from home without downloading an app? Buffing your window panes for three hours.
The retort from some to the accusation that millennials can’t keep house would be that they can’t afford a house in the first place, given the property market. Fair point. There’s less impetus to look after somewhere that isn’t yours. When are we supposed to find the time, others might wail. I know, I know, it’s very tricky given our jobs and all the hours that we need to spend on social media, watching clips of cats doing something amusing and improbable with a mop.
But I would still recommend giving the window thing a go. Heck, housework is even becoming fashionable. This week, Harrods started selling a £4,000 ironing board, which claims to cut ironing time in half, emits “hygienic steam” and comes with a keychain made of Swarovski crystals.
“Perhaps next you can tackle your oven,” my mother remarked when I reported back about my shiny windows. Baby steps, I replied. I’ve bought myself a copy of the Clean and Green book, although now I flick back through it, I realise I should have used washing-up liquid and vinegar instead of buying glass cleaner from the supermarket. Next month, Nancy, I promise.
Source link