As ever, it’s Rocky Balboa who says it best.
In Rocky IV, the hit film of 1985, Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) surrenders his World Heavyweight Title so he can fight Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) in an unsanctioned bout in Moscow on Christmas Day, and so avenge the death of his friend Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers).
Drago is a fearsome opponent. A captain in the Soviet infantry, an Olympic boxing champion with a 100-0 amateur record, he is said to be six-foot-five and after he kills Creed in the ring he earns the nickname "Death From Above”.
When Philadelphia-born Rocky summons all that trademark heart and grit and imperviousness to repeated concussive brain injury, he gradually wins over the pro-Russian crowd and knocks Drago out.
In the ring afterwards, bloodied and beaten to a pulp, Rocky addresses the people.
“During this fight, I've seen a lot of changing. In the way you feel about me, and in the way I feel about you,” he says.
“In here, there were two guys killing each other, but I guess that's better than 20 million. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!”
Nice one, Rock. Fine sentiment. I wonder if it's true.

Ripper GC won another LIV team event in Singapore on Sunday and your care factor will depend on how heavily and on what side of the LIV versus PGA Tour debate you've rusted yourself onto.
And whatever your thoughts on the merits of Ripper's win, I’d posit this: your mind on the great schism of our golfing epoch is made up.
It’s like politics. We’re left-right, Albo-Dutto, woke- ... whatever the other one is.
it's the same in culture. Lager drinkers poo-poo pale ale. Ford drivers don’t rate Holdens, There's an Archibald Prize and a Bald Archie.
Once upon a time the smokers of Benson & Hedges cigarettes derided those who favoured menthol cigarettes with their motto “Taste the freshness of Scandinavia”.

Can we see, though, merit in both forms of golf, the traditional 72-hole stroke events as shown this morning by Taylor Pendrith's 23-under win in the CJ Cup, and LIV Golf's 54-hole parties, the Singapore event won on Sunday by Brooks Koepka, the teams one by 'our' - more on that later - Ripper GC.
Can we change like that crowd of Russian people that included members of the powerful and shady Soviet Politburo?
When LIV Golf first turned up, Greg Norman was Drago and the Saudi Public Investment Fund were the Soviets.
And when Apollo lay dying and Drago says callously, “If he dies, he dies”, everyone said, “Boo! Ivan Drago boo!” And couldn’t wait for Rocky to go over there and punch his head in. Sharky could empathise.
Rocky then travels to Russia and trains in the snow and there’s a montage of him running up snow-covered slopes and lifting logs and chopping firewood while Drago does the same sort of training except in a modern gymnasium like the Soviet Institute of Sport while his muscles are injected with anabolic steroids.

Yet LIV vs PGA is messier. It’s not goodies and baddies. It's two mighty houses of mega-wealth weeing for distance and negotiating with prejudice how to divide the Great Pie. It's US corporate dollars, Saudi petrol money; big business and a royal family that runs a country.
You're not going to have a schooner with these people after this Wednesday's stableford competition and ask "How'd you go?"
I’d further posit it's impossible to cast the PGA Tour or Jay Monahan as Rocky given they're far from underdogs, and did their best to destroy the threat of Drago-Norman before hopping in bed with the Politburo-PIF.
So it's messy, when we'd prefer our good and bad, our yin and yang, compartmentalised. Neat. It is a Thing.
Perhaps it’s always been thus. Yet it seems in these inter-connected yet insular and divided times of ‘social’ media, many people’s immediate knee-jerk reaction to any piece of writing posted on social media is to a) find fault in it, and b) not read it.
The Rippers’ win will matter not to legions of 'loyalists' who see LIV as the interloper that’s destroyed the very fabric of world golf. They’ll know nothing of Singapore or who won. Won’t care to learn. They'll just hate it anyway.

Meanwhile, the Ripper win may be cause celebre for those who see the all-Aussie team as like a roving Davis Cup squad, representative of Australia, and LIV as disruptor and agent for change.
Yet Ripper GC doesn’t represent, officially, anyway, Australia given there’s no funding by we, the Australian taxpayer, unless you count the shekels we gave the players when they were juniors and which Lucas Herbert, for one, has since paid back.
But they're not the Oarsome Foursome at the Olympics or the Matildas at the Football World Cup.
They’re a franchise, a business, what Norman calls an “asset class”. That they added another $US5 million to the portfolio of Ripper Inc. and lead the overall team standings, possibly, I reckon most of us are ambivalent at best.

But you tell me. How do you see Ripper GC? Do they feel like a roving bunch of all-Aussie good guys taking on the world? Or a four-pack of greedy mercenaries who’ve spat in the face of the tour that made them?
I’d posit it’s hard to dislike the individuals. Herbert, Cam Smith, Marc Leishman, Matt Jones, the roving reserve, Wade Ormsby. Good blokes all. They could be playing in your golf club’s stableford competition on Wednesday before flat-bellying up to the bar and asking ‘How’d you go?’.
Instead, they’re on the piss in Singapore, as they were in Adelaide, spraying champagne about and drinking from shoes, and flying away first class to go marlin fishing in the azure waters off the Florida pan-handle.
For mine, good luck to them.
For yours? [Insert opinion here].
Do you reckon that will ever change?
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