Dave Hyde: The PGA outlasted LIV players’ thirst for Saudi millions

(Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images North America/TNS)

DORAL, Fla. — Well, the right side won. Sometimes that happens in sports. The PGA Tour even returned to Doral on Thursday for its first tournament in a decade, as if to officially mark the LIV Tour leaving everyone with the sour smell of a flopped hustle.

The only question left is what to do with the bank-rich, morally-bankrupt LIV players who wish to migrate back to the PGA. Make them qualify all over again? Play without a 5-iron as a career penance?

“I’m not sure,’’ said Jordan Spieth, tied for second at 7 under par with Cameron Young leading by one after the first round of the Cadillac Championship. “I’m not sure if it should be the same for everyone. I know olive branches were given out, you know, a couple months ago.

“Brooks (Koepka) took them up on it. So I’m not sure what would now change.”

As it ends, what is LIV’s legacy? There was Greg Norman’s militant nuttiness. There were players in shorts, music on greens and, “Golf but louder,” slogans. But its prime legacy was in showing what a pile of Saudi Arabian blood money can do to people — and to the games they play.

Fans can ignore the big money at most sports events and enjoy the game. The scorecard at LIV was the money. That’s not to say it isn’t in all golf. But this became a civil war between millionaire golfers with some moral backbone and tens-of-millionaires without any.

“I hate LIV — hate it,’’ Rory McIlroy once said, adding later he felt, “betrayed” by its defectors.

So, was it worth it for the LIV players? Get out your calculator. Koepka reportedly signed a five-year, $100 million deal to play with LIV. He made roughly $45 million in prize money. He then reportedly didn’t take his final year’s installment to start his return to the PGA as part of that olive branch Spieth mentioned.

So subtract a that final year, pro-rated $20 million. And subtract another $5 million charity donation woven into his PGA agreement, too. Image rehabilitation has a price.

Still, all told, Koepka made roughly $120 million in four LIV years. Compare that to the $30 million in total purses he made over the three years before leaving for LIV (throwing out the 2020 COVID-damaged season). So he won, right?

Well, he’s playing next weekend on the qualifying tour in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and not the PGA event in Charlotte. That’s part of his path back. The PGA wants its pound of divoted flesh. The question becomes what to do with the others, starting with Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau.

“Time heals all wounds,’’ veteran Brian Harman said. “There’s still some sentiment out here, especially with all the lawsuit stuff, that stuff’s going to be tough to get past.

“We play with all those guys in the majors, so, yeah, I think there should be a path back.”

For all the gnashing of teeth and 4-irons, the PGA golfers came out of this rich-man’s spat richer, too. Their prize money rose in retaliation to LIV’s money. Take Doral. The purse for the 2016 event was $9.5 million and the winner earned $1.65 million.

Sunday’s winner of earns $4 million. The total purse is $20 million as the event graduated into one of the PGA’s eight “signature” events.

There remain other, muddled storylines across this LIV timeline that won’t get untangled. There was no bigger cheerleaders for LIV than the Doral owner, President Donald Trump. The course held annual LIV tournaments. He then attempted to broker peace between LIV and the PGA, saying in 2023 it would take him “15 minutes” to strike a deal.

This week, three years later, Saudi Arabia pulled the plug on LIV in part due to a temporary halt of oil money after the president’s war with Iran closed oil delivery through the Strait of Hormuz. Or maybe it was just destined for this finish.

What matters now is the PGA is back at on the Doral course with so much history, from Jack Nicklaus to Tiger Woods winning over decades. So much looked right Thursday. Golf was on the menu. Golfers were happy to talk about it.

“Thankfully I had a really good day around the greens,’’ said Young, the first-round leader. “I made a couple from the fringe and putted really well.”

The right side won the bigger battle. That’s what you root for in sports. Sometimes, like the PGA returning to Doral, it works out right.