Your thoughts on golf's association with organizations/countries tied to human rights issues?

PedronNiall · March 8, 2020

For instance, The Race to Dubai is a hallmark of the Euro Tour despite continuous reporting on human rights violations when surrounding the slave labor that keeps the Emirates running like a well-oiled machine.

Then we have the Olympics; I don't think there's a better representation for corruption and the mistreatment of the poor for the profit of the mega rich than the Hunger Olympic Games. Amateur athletes forced to work full-time jobs to pay for their own training time at national facilities while the USOC runs the venues for all intents and purposes at a profit. Those same athletes not allowed to advertise their sponsors while huge corporations pay to keep anything not theirs out of event areas so they can set astronomical prices. Workers being literally worked to death during the construction of sites like Sochi and those luckily enough to survive often denied portions of or all of their pay and jailed if they raised issues. Poor neighborhoods being bulldozed and their tenants beaten in Brazil for the Rio games and athletes being exposed to toxic water from sewage runoff flowing into event areas. Open bribery for location selection. A handful of people running the national and international Olympic Committees making the equivalent of seven figure salaries via handshake deals, "advisory positions", and outright bribes for an ostensibly non-profit venture that's "for the good of sport."

My question is: why would anyone think a gold medal is worth much of anything anymore with death, disenfranchisement, police brutality, and open corruption tied to each and every instance of the games being held? I couldn't care less about watching golf during the Olympics and I will continue not watching and feel no loss and not having partaken. I've never really been big on any of the UAE events though I can certainly see the draw of such large purses. Regardless, I find it interesting that while you have reporting on the de facto slave labor there featured on almost every major news network and covered multiple times on sports journals such as Real Sports, nary a whisper is made about that 'peccadillo' during Euro and Golf Channel coverage of the events, at least to my knowledge. I find it interesting that the premise of golf is so much focus on etiquette, being gentlemen and gentlewomen, fair treatment for all, and with the pro events, donating to help the less fortunate, yet something so glaringly incongruent with those ideals is a ongoing part of golf's 'moneyball' formula.

That said, I'm only one man and these are only my opinions. I'd like to know what others think legitimately about the situation.