Golf fans are just as wild as any other sports enthusiast. Similarly, athletes and their families can go too far, forgetting that they are also human.
The long-awaited second season of Netflix’s Full Swing premieres on March 6th, and the story that comes out of it is wild.
Producers interviewed Dustin Johnson and his wife Paulina Gretzky to discuss their journey over the past few years.Gretzky explained How crazy has it gotten? when Johnson departed for the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League.
“Some people were sending me death threats and horrible, horrible, horrible things,” she said. “I’m sure people were being offensive, but at that moment I shut down a little bit and said, ‘You don’t need to see this. Everyone has an opinion on it and that’s fine.’ That’s what I thought.”
⛳️ #new: Paulina Gretzky spoke on Full Swing S2 about the death threats her family received after DJ moved to LIV. I’m sure people were offensive, but that was when I temporarily shut it down… pic.twitter.com/JSu1QtKVjR
— NUCLR Golf (@NUCLRGOLF) March 6, 2024
It’s never easy to hear about a family receiving death threats. But this is clearly not a new phenomenon.
Not only that, but this particular case had little to do with sports and was all about politics.
LIV Golf has been criticized since its inception due to its ties to Saudi Arabia and its public investment fund. Saudi Arabia has a terrible history on human rights, implicated in numerous other atrocities.
The Middle Eastern country has been criticized for “sportswashing,” or cleaning up a country’s reputation through sports. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohamman bin Salman has publicly admitted that he plans to continue using sports wash because it is effective.
As a result, Johnson’s transfer to LIV left a bad taste in fans’ mouths.
But that doesn’t justify their actions. Nothing happens.
Gretzky went on to explain that her husband now has more control over his schedule instead of being dictated to by the PGA Tour.
The PGA Tour has 36 events scheduled per year, while LIV Golf only hosts 14 events per year.
“Our life used to be ‘I had to be in the back seat,’ but now we feel like we’re flying together at the front of the plane. It was the right choice,” Gretzky said. spoke in full swing.
Johnson was one of the players who was adamant that his decision to move to LIV Golf was to spend more time with his family. He won five times on the LIV Golf Tour and earned $35 million in just his first season in the Saudi-backed league.
Family may have been the main reason, but money wasn’t an issue.
Savannah Lee Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through.If you want to know more about golf, please follow us. @_PlayingThrough On all major social platforms. You can also follow her on Twitter @SportsGirls and Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports.
