Golf's the royal and ancient game, rooted in history, tradition and decorum. Upon such foundations sprouted a high-end professional sport with tours that span the globe, creating scores of multi-millionaire sportsmen.
 
Four historic major events sit at the top of the men's golfing world; the Open, Masters, US Open and PGA Championship. Feeding into them is America's PGA Tour, running year-round multi-million-dollar tournaments for the best players on the planet. Europe's DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour) performs a similar role on a slightly less grand scale, but identifying and feeding their best talent towards their US counterparts. Playing 72-hole tournaments with brutal halfway cuts to jettison that week's poorest performers, these leading circuits established a long-accepted format. Always careful to protect the image of the game, rows and disputes take place behind closed doors, moments of controversy are quickly quashed. Everything was done to air dirty laundry only behind firmly shut locker room doors. It is a sport that knows its clean-cut image equates to bundles of corporate dollars.
 
But not anymore.
 
After years of background plotting, insurgents funded by the bottomless pockets of Saudi Arabia have shaken men's professional golf like never before. Investing billions, they have started an entirely new take on how to play elite men's professional golf and prompted an unprecedented civil war in what had always been regarded the most civil of sports.