Rich Harvest lands Saudi-backed LIV Tour – with a thud

The Grill Room – by Tim Cronin

Writing from Chicago

Wednesday, March 16, 2022

updated Thursday, March 17, 2022

Here’s everything you need to know about Rich Harvest Farms hosting the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf Invitation Tour in mid-September:

1. Today's word of landing the tournament came complete with a one-page “Memo” with six reasons why, noting that groups ranging from the ultra-private club’s caddies to Ukrainian refugees would benefit from the proceeds – i.e., the rent of the facility – to be had.

2. Rich Harvest Farms founder-owner Jerry Rich was not quoted. Nor does he want to speak on the topic, we were informed, but Thursday morning on his personal e-mail list, he forwarded the LIV tour release and added the following: "Hope to see a big turn out from all you golf fans! This will be huge for Illinois and the Chicagoland area."

Before that, it was pay no attention to the man who is not only behind the curtain, but owns it.

The money for bringing in the upstart tour must be good, because it’s not like Rich doesn’t have it. He built his fortune on coming up with the consolidated quote machine for Wall Street, the fortune big enough for him to buy thousands of acres outside of Sugar Grove – several times the size of Monaco, though no sea view – and plant his own mostly self-designed golf course on it.

Rich doesn’t need the dough, but he does love the attention. That’s why he’s spent lavishly over the years to have not just 18 holes, but a pair of world-class practice facilities, a  series of buildings that serve as clubhouses, pro shops, residence halls and an indoor practice center, the latter as much for Northern Illinois University’s golf team – he’s a proud alum – as for himself.

That’s why he’s hosted the Solheim Cup, the Western Amateur, the NCAA Championship, the Western Junior, and sundry other amateur championships since the course, which started as a few reversible practice holes, was expanded to a full 18.

Like anyone, Rich would prefer receiving bouquets than brickbats. He’s a decent guy. A few years ago, he donated the land and the funding for a new Catholic parish adjacent to his property after his wife died. He has a pet project to grow the game, the Kids Golf Foundation of Illinois, that since 1998 has seen 250,000 children learn the fundamentals of the game for free. The foundation is the first item on the list that will benefit from the LIV weekend.

The memo, of course, was issued because Saudi Arabia, which through crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and his government-owned investment operation is backing Greg Norman’s long-held dream of a world golf tour, is one of the world’s more repressive regimes. The gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi only reinforced that. Just the other day, the Saudi government killed 81 people for various crimes, supposedly ranging from murder to terrorism. It was the first mass execution by Saudi Arabia in six years.

Much like Al Capone’s gang once ran soup kitchens in Chicago in an effort to cleanse his reputation, such “sportswashing” generally backfires, drawing more attention to the tawdry exploits of countries involved in suppressing freedom.

This is not new. Witness the Olympics in Moscow, Beijing and Sarajevo, to name three garden spots, plus the granddaddy of them all, in Nazi-controlled Berlin in 1936. The Formula One racing circuit has several stops in non-democratic countries, including Saudi Arabia at the end of the year, like-minded neighbor Bahrain for its opener this week, plus China and, until the recent invasion of Ukraine made it untenable, Russia, at a course around the Winter Olympic sites in Sochi.

Golf has been no different. The PGA Tour would prefer you pay no mind to its stalled tournament series in China. South Africa was a popular destination for name pros in a million-dollar tournament during apartheid. Now come the Saudis, not only hosting but bankrolling a tour and offering bonuses – so far shunned – for name players to come along for the ride.

The Rich Harvest tournament will be the sixth of eight 54-hole weekends and the fourth of four in the United States. The purse of $25 million – $20 million for up to 48 individuals, $5 million for a team concept nobody will pay the slightest attention to – is standard for the LIV circuit, which will award $255 million in Saudi oil money across those eight weekends.

Who the 48 players will be – and if the series will get to that number – is as yet unknown. Many offers have been name, none accepted, partly because the PGA Tour threatens to ban those who sign with the Saudis – the lawyers will love that – and partly because Phil Mickelson managed to blurt out the truth about using the new group for leverage in pressing different demands with the PGA Tour, and ripped the Saudis for killing Khashoggi at the same time.

Where the tournaments will be televised is also undecided. It won’t be with any of the Tour-affiliated outlets, which leaves Fox or a streaming service unless C-SPAN jumps in.

But the courses are there and the money is there. Where there is money, golfers eventually follow. Even when one of the hosts doesn’t want to say a word about the group coming in to dirty his towels.