Today golf, tomorrow the world: Why Saudi Arabia has its eyes set on owning every sporting prize

Armed with barrowloads of cash, but scant interest in balls or rackets, the Saudis won’t stop until they’ve conquered every sporting continent, says Jim White

Rory McIlroy has been a cheerleader for the DP World Tour – but is faced with no option but to fall into line with the controversial LIV merger (Getty)

It is not often we can say this about a pastime generally dismissed as the epitome of conservatism, but this week, golf gave us all a glimpse of the future. When the DP World Tour and the Professional Golfers’ Association, the two presiding institutions of the professional game, announced a merger with the Saudi-backed LIV Tour, it was a seismic moment. Because, make no mistake, for all the talk of partnership and conglomeration, this was a takeover. Professional golf, a sport reckoned to have more than 450 million fans across the globe, has just become the property of the Saudis.

The thing is, it will not be the last. This is a nation on an unabashed sporting campaign. Not to win things, or top medal tables. But to own sport. All sport. Golf, football, boxing, tennis, Formula One: along with their neighbours in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, they have their eyes on everything.

And what the Saudis have demonstrated in their sudden and comprehensive buyout of golf is that they properly understand the fundamental mechanics of international sport. Because in sport, what talks loudest and most persuasively is money. The Saudis come armed with an awful lot of the stuff.