The US Open is being played this week on the posh greensward of the exclusive Los Angeles Country Club, a venue that will test to the max the best golfers in the world – and more than 130 pretenders to that status. The competition involves in total 156 selfish individuals from some 25 countries, including an amateur from the People’s Republic of China, chasing a trophy that will allow one of them to say that he’s the best at the game in the United States.

While the word “selfish” may seem harsh, it has the value of reality behind it: A golfer who has qualified to be a professional and is looking to earn the Open’s multi-million-dollar top prize via his talent for using technology-enriched clubs and balls to beat par, often badly, has to be single minded with his lifestyle, his preparation, and his on-course play. He has no teammates to bail him out of the bad spots, just a caddie who, in some cases, can be invaluable as counselor and cheerleader. His fellow competitors are in the same space he is.

This year, though, that centeredness on self is facing an off-course challenge from a development that affects them all: The announcement on June 6 that a Saudi-run golf league know as LIV (the Roman numerals are a nod to the 54-hole extent of its tournament play) that has made life difficult for the PGA Tour since 2021 will join forces with the American organization and release billions from its $700 billion Public Investment Fund (PIV) to help move things along.

Founded and financed in 2021 by the Saudi Arabian government, LIV went on a spending spree that lured, among others, a number of celebrated PGA Tour players who had won numerous major tournaments to leave the PGA Tour and sign contracts with LIV for numbers that were eye-catching, though unverified: $200 million for Phil Mickelson, a marvelous player who was a pot-stirrer in the PGA ranks in the interest of his selfishness, and $100 million for Dustin Johnson, who mostly just played high-level golf and let others work the spectator rope lines and the media.

By signing onto LIV, these players found themselves in the glare of insistent protests, waged most insistently by the families of victims of the 9/11attacks, that they were now servants of an immoral government that sponsored murder and endorsed a cultural backwater in its own country. For the most part, the golfers shrugged off the negativity, some of them with unfortunate word choices.

The PGA Tour (as distinct from the PGA of America, which is made up of the club professionals who run golf shops and give lessons at public and private courses) initially took on the challenge by outlawing members who had joined the Saudi organization. Per the American way, suits, replete with uncensored rancor, followed from both sides, with court hearings that would ultimately resolve any conflicts set for early next year.

The effect of all this on public interest, particularly those who play or like golf in general, has been varied, according to polling results. While many are wary of the ultimate interest of the Saudi money, they give the players some room, conceding that selfishness has its place. Who in his right mind wouldn’t at least consider signing on to play a sporting game for hundreds of millions?

For now, there is a substantial element of muddlement as to where things stand. The new entity doesn’t have a name, and all the details of the merger to be (it has to be approved by PGA Tour players) are unknown to all – including the most important players – but the merger negotiators, in particular, Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, and Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s wealth fund, and their consultants.

Over the weekend leading into US Open week, Monahan went straight to the heart of the matter when he stated the obvious: In the end, the PGA “cannot compete with a foreign government with unlimited money.”

Where this all leaves the PGA players who declined the Saudi dollars out of loyalty to their organization and their relationship to the former members who have banked their Saudi dollars and will be coming back for more will be known soon enough. A number of LIV players will be competing this week because they met all the US Open’s qualifications, and there are storm clouds heavy with resentment in the air above the Los Angeles Country Club.