PGA Tour will tout minimal Saudi influence in golf merger at Congressional hearing
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
PGA officials will defend the pact by saying Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, LIV’s biggest backer, will be only a minority investor in the combined enterprise.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
WASHINGTON – Two top PGA Tour officials plan to tell United States lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would have little sway over the golf business if a proposed merger with LIV Golf goes through.
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is holding a hearing on Tuesday
Ron Price, PGA Tour’s chief operating officer, and Jimmy Dunne, a PGA Tour policy board member who helped negotiate the deal, will defend the pact by saying Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), LIV’s biggest backer, will be only a minority investor in the combined enterprise and that the US Tour will drive the future of the pro golf business, according to a person familiar with the PGA’s thinking.
The officials will assure lawmakers that PGA Tour has non-negotiable terms in its agreement that give it control of the combined entity, said the person, who declined to be identified discussing confidential strategy.
The announcement that the rivals would merge came as a surprise inside golf and to the world beyond the links.
The two organisations had been warring in court and in public, with the PGA Tour accusing LIV of using sports to steer attention away from Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.
The deal is a long way from completion – the two sides have not agreed to final financial terms, and it will have to get approval from regulators. The potential union has drawn scepticism from players as well as from antitrust experts and politicians in the US.
Lawmakers are likely to grill the PGA Tour officials on what led to the sudden decision to combine after months of acrimony.
The merger, announced on June 6, was agreed to after a series of face-to-face meetings between PGA and LIV officials in the US and Europe.
“I hope we’re going to uncover a number of the key facts about what led to this total reversal and apparent sell-out as many people have described it, leaving a feeling of betrayal among fans, sponsors, athletes, and the 9/11 families who stood by the PGA Tour,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat who heads the investigations committee, told reporters on Monday.
Even before the merger deal was struck, lawmakers were vocal about their opposition to LIV Golf and even tried putting curbs on the upstart circuit, citing concern about its Saudi backing.
However, none of LIV’s top executives, or any officers from the PIF, will be questioned on Tuesday. Top LIV officials, including former golf pro Greg Norman and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the head of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, will not appear at the hearing.
Blumenthal said none of the documents the PGA Tour has provided about the merger indicate what the Saudi PIF is going to invest or the kind of control it will have.
“They may deny that there’s control on paper, but the agreement so far is filled with holes and gaps,” he said.
Representatives for LIV and PIF did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why the officials cannot attend.
Price, the PGA Tour operations chief, said in an op-ed in The Athletic on Monday that the deal will ensure the US-based group will continue to set the pace for professional golf.
“For two years, the question has been, who would lead professional golf forward? The answer provided by this work towards a definitive agreement is now clear: the PGA Tour,” he wrote.
The PGA Tour will gain much-needed resources to improve the sport that will benefit golfers and fans, he added.
Price is filling in at the hearing for PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who has been on medical leave since June. Monahan, 53, is expected to return to his role on Monday. BLOOMBERG
