Netflix's Full Swing Fails to Follow Through on Its Criticism of LIV Golf

Men’s golf is a sport without one true villain, but Netflix’s Full Swing presents a clear antagonist: LIV Golf, a professional tour financed by the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund. Developed as a rival to the PGA Tour, LIV offers golfers nine-figure sums to play in 54-hole team tournaments, with an unprecedented $405 million in total prize money up for grabs over the course of the season. (In 2023, all 14 events will air on The CW in the United States.) The promise of a big payday has lured countless golfers to the new league, including former World No. 1 Dustin Johnson and major champions Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau, but their move has generated significant (and warranted) backlash. These golfers have been accused of overlooking Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses and enabling its efforts to “sportswash” its image on the global stage.

Full Swing, an eight-episode docuseries produced by the team behind Formula 1: Drive to Survive, seems to agree with this criticism. Though not explicitly produced in partnership with the PGA Tour, the docuseries features in-depth interviews with its biggest stars, from Rory McIlroy to Scottie Scheffler, and gives them a platform from which to extoll the virtues of the sport’s preeminent tour. But despite presenting as anti-LIV, Full Swing fails to follow through when it matters, instead allowing players like Johnson to frame their embrace of the Saudi-backed league as a purely financial decision, rather than a moral one.

The launch of LIV largely defined the 2022 PGA Tour season, so it’s only right that it looms large over Full Swing, three episodes of which are explicitly devoted to the breakaway league. The first, Episode 3, “Money or Legacy,” positions golfers’ interest in LIV as just that: a shameless money grab. Producers gained access to the league’s inaugural event, the LIV Invitational at the Centurion Club near London, England, and footage of players at the driving range and walking the course is backed by rap song “Big Bag of Money” by G-Eyez. As legend Phil Mickelson, who signed a LIV contract worth a reported $200 million, Johnson ($150 million up front), and British golfer Ian Poulter sign autographs and prepare to tee off, G-Eyez’s voice rings out, the message loud and clear: “Walk inside the bank / All I want is cash ... Big ol’ bag of money / I need that big ol’ bag of money.”

This securing-the-bag sequence leads right into the LIV Invitational press conference, where members of the press interrogated the players about Saudi Arabia’s pattern of human rights violations and the connection between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (who controls the Public Investment Fund that finances the league) and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The players offered mealy-mouthed statements in response, insisting that they’re “here to focus on the golf” alone.

But as Brandel Chamblee, a PGA Tour golfer turned analyst who has been a vocal critic of LIV, makes plain, “sticking to sports,” as the saying goes, isn’t possible in this scenario. “You made this decision to go help Saudi Arabia,” he says. “And here these atrocities are that you’re helping hide.”

Chamblee’s frank assessment should be the jumping-off point for Full Swing’s well-deserved critique of LIV Golf, but sadly, it soon becomes clear that the show isn’t willing to go any further. When it comes time for Johnson to tell his story in Episode 5, “American Dreams,” producers give him free rein to spin his move to LIV as a no-brainer business decision. “It was playing less, making more money,” he says. “If someone offered anyone a job doing the same thing they’re already doing, but less time at the office, and they’re going to pay them more, [I’m] pretty sure you’re going to take it. Something’s wrong with you if you didn’t.”

Johnson pauses, waiting for the inevitable question from the interviewer — But what if taking that job meant enabling an oppressive regime? Wouldn’t that be an important consideration beyond money and time? — but it never comes. Refusing to challenge the powerful players so obviously reframing the controversy in their favor is an extreme act of cowardice, one that negates Full Swing’s earlier efforts to claim the moral high ground on this issue.

The final episode of the docuseries, “Everything Has Led to This,” returns to the “Money or Legacy” theme, as seen through the lens of McIlroy, who has assumed Tiger Woods’ role as steward of the game. Like Chamblee, McIlroy has been steadfast in his opposition to LIV, accusing the tour and CEO Greg Norman of “ripping apart” men’s professional golf. But while McIlroy will likely find himself on the right side of history, his criticism of the breakaway league remains rooted in a desire to preserve the “legacy” of the game (which has long been hostile to women and people of color). “I care deeply about our sport. I care about its history,” he says. “I care about the integrity of the game. And there’s a lot of players out here that share those same views.” When McIlroy does allude to LIV’s problems, he vaguely claims he’s “trying to defend what [he thinks] is right,” without offering specifics about the Saudi government or its victims.

Here, Full Swing tips its hand. Like McIlroy, the series establishes itself in opposition to LIV Golf, but neither is willing to get into the rough and offer a full-throated condemnation of the regime funding it. Perhaps its naïve to assume that Netflix — the same service that pulled an episode of Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj about Khashoggi’s murder, at the Saudi government’s request — is the best home for this kind of criticism, but a show that derives so much of its identity from its anti-LIV stance should at least have the courage to stand by its own moral code.

Full Swing is now streaming on Netflix.

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.