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A few days prior to the start of an inquiry from the U.S. Senate subcommittee into the PGA Tour’s planned partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and the DP World Tour, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan told Congress that his golf circuit was “left on our own.”
Monahan sent a letter to lawmakers claiming the PGA Tour’s position was weakened when it came to competing with Saudi Arabia’s bid to take over the sport with LIV Golf because of the United States’ geopolitical alliance with the kingdom.
The PIF has an estimated $620 billion at its disposal, and the PGA Tour had already incurred $50 million in legal fees and earmarked another $100 million for higher purses in its tournaments, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
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Jay Monahan speaks to the media as a preview for The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass on March 7, 2023, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. (David Cannon/Getty Images)
The agreement, while still not finalized, would end all litigation between the PGA Tour and the PIF. Since its inception, the LIV circuit has managed to sign some of the biggest names in golf to lucrative contracts. In some cases, golfers have inked deals in excess of $100 million.
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The PGA Tour responded by pouring millions into the purses at its own tournaments.
“During this intense battle, we met with several members of Congress and policy experts to discuss the PIF’s attempt to take over the game of golf in the United States, and suggested ways that Congress could support us in these efforts,” Monahan wrote. “While we are grateful for the written declarations of support we received from certain members, we were largely left on our own to fend off the attacks, ostensibly due to the United States’ complex geopolitical alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
Monahan added that legal battles could have lasted for years and would have come at great costs.
“This left the very real prospect of another decade of expensive and distracting litigation and the PGA Tour’s long-term existence under threat.”
Three days after Monahan’s letter – first reported by Politico and obtained by The Associated Press – the leader of a Senate subcommittee demanded records from the PGA Tour and Saudi golf interests amid “serious questions” on how the agreement came about.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, also said he wanted to hear the PGA Tour’s plan to keep its tax-exempt status.
It was not clear to whom Monahan sent his letter because that was redacted, though it was believed not every member of Congress received it.
“We believe that we did everything we could possibly do to defend what we stand for, including spending tens of millions of dollars to defend ourselves from litigation instigated by LIV Golf – significant funds diverted away from our core mission to benefit our players and generate charity,” Monahan said.
He said the tour secured a federal court ruling that PIF was not protected under the Foreign Service Sovereignty Act because a judge had said the Saudi wealth fund was doing commercial business in the U.S. That ruling has been appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, extending the antitrust lawsuits through at least the middle of next year.
Monahan said the agreement was not a merger with LIV Golf, a 48-man league that has a team component and plays eight of its 14 tournaments in the United States.
The LIV Golf logo is displayed on July 29, 2022, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. (Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The announcement last week was for PIF, the PGA Tour and European tour to pool their business interests – that includes PIF-funded LIV Golf. Still unclear is whether LIV Golf continues after this year and how players who defected from the PGA Tour could return.
Monahan has referred to the agreement only as a framework, and even in a hostile player meeting last week at the Canadian Open, he could not offer many details.
In his letter to lawmakers, Monahan said the agreement would allow the PGA Tour to run tournaments as before, with him as commissioner and New York attorney Ed Herlihy as the chairman of the board.
PGA Tour logo is seen at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines South on Jan. 29, 2021, in San Diego, California. (Photo by Ben Jared/PGA Tour via Getty Images)
Monahan would be CEO of the new for-profit company – he described it as a subsidiary of the PGA Tour – with Yasir Al-Rumayyan as the company’s chairman. Al-Rumayyan is the governor of Saudi’s wealth fund.
Monahan, Al-Rumayyan, Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne – the PGA Tour board member who helped broker the deal – would form the executive committee.
“The PGA Tour will at all times hold the majority of the Board seats and be in control of this new entity, regardless of the size of PIF’s investment,” Monahan said, adding PIF would be a minority investor.
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“At its core, the PIF is investing in the PGA Tour as it has invested in other U.S.-based companies,” he said. “The PGA Tour and its tournaments will continue to operate as they do today, generating significant charitable and economic impact in the communities where they are played.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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