A bitter legal battle has come to an end with America’s premier golf league, the PGA Tour, agreeing to merge with its rival, the Saudi-backed LIV Golf—a newcomer that critics have labeled a propaganda tool used by Saudi Arabia to gloss over its human rights abuses.
The two entities will now combine their commercial and business rights into “a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity” that is yet to be named, the leagues announced in a joint statement Tuesday.
The agreement, which also brings in PGA’s European DP World Tour, also quashes all pending litigation, including an antitrust lawsuit filed by 11 LIV golfers, who accused the PGA of being an unfair monopoly on the sport after the league suspended 17 players for defecting to LIV.
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The merger appears to be a stunning capitulation by the PGA to a cashed-up breakaway tournament that has been described as sportswashing on an industrial scale.
As Daily Beast columnist A. Craig Copetas foreshadowed last year, the Saudi Arabian kingdom, which has been accused of sanctioning the 2018 assassination and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, was using its “petroleum profits to fund a hostile takeover of one of America’s favorite pastimes.”
“Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s cleansing solution is the age-old practice of sportswashing, the burlesque application of vast sums of money to a sports team or event designed to scrub away the filth,” Copetas wrote.
While Tiger Woods reportedly turned down $1 billion to join LIV, the fledgling circuit, largely funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, raised eyebrows by luring American stars like Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Lee Westwood with eye-watering contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan laid out his resentment for their defections in a June 2022 letter obtained by USA Today, claiming the turncoats “made their choice for their own financial-based reasons.” He said the move “disrespects” colleagues and fans.
Months later, PGA filed a countersuit against LIV and hit back with claims of anticompetitive conduct, such as signing golfers to contracts “far more restrictive” than the PGA’s regulations, according to a complaint. The American league then sued again to force evidence discovery after LIV’s lawyers refused to cooperate with requests to produce documents, CNBC reported.
As the two leagues spiraled into legal feuds, the Department of Justice launched an investigation into whether PGA engaged in anticompetitive practices by attempting to block players from joining the deep-pocketed Saudi circuit. The timeline for the completion of that probe remains unclear.
Tuesday’s merger announcement said the Saudi Public Investment Fund will initially be the exclusive investor in the new merged entity. Current governor of the wealth fund, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, will serve as chairman of the entity’s board of directors, and PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan will be CEO. PGA will appoint a majority of the board and hold a “majority voting interest” in the entity.
“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” Monahan said in the statement. “Going forward, fans can be confident that we will, collectively, deliver on the promise we’ve always made – to promote competition of the best in professional golf and that we are committed to securing and driving the game’s future.”
The leagues said they will “work cooperatively and in good faith” to outline a process for “any players who desire to re-apply for membership with the PGA TOUR or the DP World Tour following the completion of the 2023 season.”
Upon hearing the news of the agreement, Mickelson tweeted “Awesome day today.”
Ex-president Donald Trump, who has backed LIV and hosted several tournaments at his golf courses, had his own thoughts on the merger.
“GREAT NEWS FROM LIV GOLF. A BIG, BEAUTIFUL, AND GLAMOROUS DEAL FOR THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF GOLF,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “CONGRATS TO ALL!!!
