Defectors open Saudi-funded golf series amid pomp, fractures

By ROB HARRIS
AP Sports Writer

ST. ALBANS, England (AP) — The Saudi-funded golf breakaway has started outside London, attempting to bring a sense of faux regal pageantry to the rebellion splitting the sport. On a course just outside north London, a band dressed as imitation infantrymen were there to proclaim the arrival of Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson, two of the stars enticed from the PGA Tour to potentially earn hundreds of millions of dollars on the LIV Golf series. As their round began, the PGA Tour announced the defectors would be banished from future events. Johnson had already given up his PGA membership, but Mickelson is not ready to.