#We faced an existential threat that LIV Golf would take over professional golf

LIV Golf was on a path to become the leader of professional golf around the world and, in the process, could have operated it for the benefit of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. That is why the PGA Tour entered into a financial agreement with the Saudi Public Investment Fund, acting PGA Tour co-commissioner Ron Price said Tuesday before a congressional committee investigating the merger of the two competing tours.

“We faced a real threat that LIV Golf, which is 100-percent financed by the Kingdom of Saudi, would become the leader of professional golf,” Price said.

The ongoing saga of the deal between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund entered a new phase Tuesday morning as members of the Tour’s leadership testified before a congressional committee investigating the merger.

The U.S. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held the hearing, “The PGA Tour-LIV Deal: Implications for the future of golf and Saudi Arabia’s influence in the United States,” to delve into the proposed merger, which would bring an end to more than a year of hostilities between the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf tour.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) initially called the hearing, inviting PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan and LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman to attend. However, Al-Rumayyan and Norman declined, citing schedule conflicts, and Monahan continues to recover from health issues which forced him to step away from the Tour last month. In his absence, Price, the PGA Tour’s chief operating officer and acting co-commissioner, and PGA Tour board member Jimmy Dunne represented the Tour in Congress.

Blumenthal wasted no time inquiring why the PGA Tour changed its tune, from wholly anti-LIV Golf to entering into a partnership with the Saudi-backed league.

“Instead of accepting this amount of money — call it an investment, call it financing from the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund — did you explore other sources of potential investment?” Blumenthal asked Price.

“We considered that Senator, but had we gone down that path we would still be fighting the very expensive and disruptive litigation,” Price replied.

“And if you had won, you would have prevailed,” Blumenthal shot back.

“That was far from a certainty,” Price responded, “and LIV Golf would have continued to recruit our players and put our tour in jeopardy, and they could have become the leader of professional golf and operated it for the benefit for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

The PGA Tour faced an existential threat, Price and Dunne testified. The Tour could not compete against the immensely deep pocket that is the $600-plus billion PIF, which only needed to lure a handful of high-profile players to tip the scale in its favor.

“I understand Sen. Blumenthal’s concern of not having [the Saudis] take over — that’s the last thing in the world we want,” Dunne explained. “… My fear is if we don’t get to an agreement, they’re already putting billions of dollars into golf. They’ve got a management team that wants to destroy the tour. And even though — you could say take five or six players a year — they have an unlimited horizon and an unlimited amount of money. It isn’t like the product is better. It’s just that there’s a lot more money that will make people move.”

The saber-rattling actually began before the hearing even began. On Monday night, Blumenthal released a copy of his planned opening remarks, setting the stage for the tone of the hearing.

“Today’s hearing is about much more than the game of golf,” Blumenthal wrote. “It is about how a brutal, repressive regime can buy influence — indeed even take over — a cherished American institution simply to cleanse its public image. A regime that has killed journalists, jailed and tortured dissidents, fostered the war in Yemen, and supported other terrorist activities, including 9/11. It’s called sportswashing.”

Blumenthal continued, “It is also about hypocrisy, and how vast sums of money can induce individuals and institutions to betray their own values and supporters, or perhaps reveal lack of values from the beginning. It’s about other sports and institutions that could fall prey – if their leaders let it be all about the money.”

In an editorial published in The Athletic, Price tried to counter the negative public perception of the deal, which shocked the golf world when it was announced June 6. “First, the agreement provides clear, explicit and permanent safeguards that ensure the PGA Tour will lead the decisions that shape our future, and that we’ll have control over our operations, strategy and continuity of our mission,” Price wrote. “Second, if we get a final agreement, it will allow us to further invest in the players who define our sport, and the events, venues, communities and technology that bring it to life.”

Price also noted that the PGA Tour was engaged in an “unsustainable battle that threatened our very existence,” and contended that the new agreement is “not a merger.”

“The PGA Tour remains intact,” Price wrote. “The subsidiary — PGA Tour Enterprises — will include PIF as a non-controlling, minority investor, as they are in many other American businesses. PGA Tour Enterprises will be led by a board of directors. The majority of that board will be appointed by the PGA Tour and that entity will be run by a CEO. That CEO will be PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. The PGA Tour’s controlling interest on that board of directors will remain constant going forward, regardless of the size of the PIF’s initial or any future incremental investments. The board of directors will also have the ability to decline any unwanted investment.”

After several weeks of mixed or nonexistent messaging, Price summarized the Tour’s approach going forward, contending that the “future for the PGA Tour is significantly brighter thanks to this agreement. The PGA Tour now has a great opportunity to advance player rewards, enhance the fan experience, grow our audience, and expand access to our game.”

Early in the hearing, the committee displayed several comments made by PGA Tour officials in 2022 sharply condemning LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, including:

“I would ask any player that has left or any player that would ever consider leaving,” Monahan said in June 2022, “have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”

“It takes a lot to say no to a bucketful of money,” Dunne said that same month.

In connection with that reversal, Blumenthal also noted that the PIF added a “non-disparagement” clause to the agreement the night before it was signed, meaning that Monahan and others could no longer speak negatively of the organization and individuals he had spent the past year criticizing.

The hearing also displayed a quote from world No. 2 Jon Rahm from last month — “I think the general feeling is that a lot of people feel a bit of betrayal from management” — which seemed to sum up the hearing’s early tone.

Blumenthal also revealed that a side agreement of the PGA Tour-PIF deal called for the termination of Norman’s tenure as CEO, a move that many on the Tour side — including Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy — seemed to indicate would be necessary for any kind of agreement to move forward. Norman remains a defiant CEO at the moment despite his absence from the hearing.

Separately, the PGA Tour-PIF arrangement is facing scrutiny from the Department of Justice over antitrust concerns. The Tour had already been the target of a Justice Department inquiry over alleged anticompetitive practices, and the news of the deal between two prior antagonists only intensified the DoJ’s interest.