Saudi Arabia still thinks money can buy a new reputation

It is a golf tour that would make a coddled Saudi bureaucrat happy. The work-week is short: 54 holes over three days, instead of the 72 over four days that is usual at other tournaments. A rolling start means play can finish within five hours. Those who play badly cannot fail to make the cut; even the worst collects $120,000. Take a World Bank report on the Gulf’s laid-back, overpaid public sector, add caddies and caps, and you have the concept behind the Saudi-financed liv tour. (liv, by the way, is the Roman numeral for 54, an impossibly low score for one round.)