BLOOD ON THE AZALEAS

Golf's civil war will be laid pare in bruising battle to occupy the Butler Cabin

- NEIL SQUIRES

AS battlegrounds go, Augusta National must be the prettiest in the sporting world but make no mistake there will be bloodstains amongst the azaleas this weekend.

Metaphorical ones this is still golf but the painful hopefully after all divide that the game's civil war has opened up will be laid bare at the Masters.

It is LIV against the loyalists, a jarring clash of worlds fought out on a luxuriant carpet of green against a backdrop of beautiful blossoms and polite applause.

Golf is traditionally an individual sport and the Majors are about individual glory but the team concept that looks so forced in LIV Golf has ironically found a focus at Augusta.

The 18 rebels are playing for themselves, sure, but also their organisation. The next few days are a high-profile chance to prove LIV is not some knockabout pension pot operation but the real deal.