PD Editorial: PGA puts money before principle

Professional golf suffered a self-inflicted wound this week with the announcement that the PGA Tour would merge with Saudi-backed LIV Golf and the DP World Tour. PGA leaders have embraced villains and big money over players and fans.

Saudi Arabia spent billions creating LIV two years ago and wooing some of the biggest names in golf to join its upstart league. It offered them signing bonuses worth tens of millions of dollars.

The PGA and the DP World Tour (also known as the European Tour) warned players that if they left, they’d never be welcome back. Most players stayed out of loyalty, respect for the history of the sport and to not be associated with the Saudis. But some of the best did take the checks, creating a bitter schism in professional golf.

Saudi Arabia’s goal for LIV was clear. It hoped to secure a position of legitimacy and acceptance on the global stage, especially in the West. The country pursued adjacent efforts in English Premier League soccer, F1 auto racing and even WWE professional wrestling.

Yet Saudi Arabia cannot so easily sportswash its reprehensible record. Saudi nationals were involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Saudi leaders ordered the assassination of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The country spirited away a Saudi national charged with a fatal hit-and-run accident in Portland, Oregon. It has engaged in a bloody conflict in Yemen for years. And its treatment of women, the LGBTQ+ community and any other minority is deplorable.

The PGA condemned that record and insisted it would never be associated with it. Then, in an instant of the basest hypocrisy, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan reversed course so he could tap into billions of Saudi dollars. Now many PGA players who chose integrity over millions of dollars are calling for his resignation. Those who went to LIV, meanwhile, will have a path back to the PGA.

Donald Trump might be a beneficiary of the merger, too. He called it a “big, beautiful and glamorous deal.” The former president owns several high-end, championship caliber golf courses around the world. One had been slated to host the PGA Championship in 2022, but the PGA changed venues after Trump supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. LIV has no problem associating with Trump, scheduling five events at his courses in the United States. Don’t be surprised if the PGA Tour returns to his courses and Trump gets some sportswash of his own.

The biggest losers are golf fans. LIV and the PGA had filed competing antitrust suits against each other, but those are moot. Despite all of the problems with LIV and its Saudi backers, it did represent competition. LIV brought innovation and a fan-focused format. It was strange compared to stodgy PGA events, but at least it was trying something new.

Sports monopolies aren’t unknown. To one degree or another, baseball, basketball, football and hockey have exemptions from federal antitrust laws. Golf does not, but the PGA is a tax-exempt nonprofit. Rep. John Garamendi, an East Bay Democrat, has filed a bill to strip it of that status in light of the merger. Antitrust investigators at the U.S. Justice Department should give the PGA-LIV deal a close look, too. So should their counterparts in Europe.

Professional golf is reunited, and all it cost was the sport’s soul.

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