Show Me The Money: Saudi Arabia Ascends To The Throne Of Global Golf

By Samuel Pennifold

In 2022, the world of golf was rocked by the creation of the Saudi Arabia-backed Liv Golf Tour, a rival to the hegemonic PGA Tour. American and other Western media outlets, the PGA Tour, and the PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, reacted with nothing short of fire and brimstone. When 9/11 Families United, a group of 9/11 victims’ families, wrote to PGA Tour players who had decided to join the LIV league, comparing their decision to a betrayal, Monahan asked the players, “Have you ever had to apologise for being a member of the PGA Tour?”

Well, it now looks like it is Monahan who will be the one apologising.

On the morning of June 6 on CNBC, Monahan described, and again in a now-made-public confidential letter to PGA tour players, a “framework agreement” to merge the PGA Tour, LIV Golf, and the DP World Tour, also known as the European Tour, into one “commercial entity”. The PGA had previously been a non-profit organisation, which is uncommon in global sports. A definitive agreement and details of what exactly this commercial entity will entail for the game are yet to be announced, but it is understood that the global game of golf will now be under the control of this new, so-called commercial entity board. Monahan has also confirmed that for the remainder of the 2023 season, the PGA, LIV, and DP tours will continue as scheduled.

Following the news, 9/11 Families United released this statement: “Our entire 9/11 community has been betrayed by Commissioner Monahan and the PGA, as it appears their concern for our loved ones was merely window-dressing in their quest for money”. 

The sense of shock conveyed in the statement was echoed by many others. Monahan and the PGA, lacking the financial leverage of PIF, the name for the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund, routinely doubled down on criticism of the Saudi-backed league over human rights abuses and other moral concerns. Nonetheless, with the controversial Australian golf legend Gregg Norman acting as its commissioner, LIV Golf was able to pry away some major golf stars from the PGA Tour. All-time great Phil Mickelson, who openly admitted to using his move for leverage against the PGA despite being aware of the abysmal human rights record of the Saudi regime, and major winner Cameron Smith were both early adopters of the league. Recently, Brooks Koepka became the first former PGA and current LIV player to win one of golf’s major tournaments, the PGA Championship.

This merger comes at a time when Saudi Arabia, through its sovereign wealth fund, has begun to massively invest in sports around the world. Of note recently has been the Saudi-backed takeover of EPL club Newcastle United and the Saudi provision of massive central contracts for some of Europe’s biggest football stars, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, and N’Golo Kanté.

Supporters of Saudi Arabia’s expansion into golf have routinely asked those who have opposed it to put aside the moral arguments and look at the positives. Namely, the money.

This merger offers the PGA the dual financial benefit of halting all LIV-sponsored litigation against them for their decision to ban LIV players from the PGA tour, including those who had met the qualifying criteria, and ensuring billions of dollars are set to be invested in the game of golf in the US and around the world. This could potentially lead to a global golf tour that many fans, even before Saudi Arabia’s expansion efforts, have been calling for. When supporters of Saudi Arabia have engaged on the moral front, they have attempted to draw attention to the recent societal changes within Saudi Arabia and the diversification of investment. What these supporters have generally not engaged in have been the moral arguments concerning the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the 9/11 families, and the continued repression of women’s and LGBTQ+ rights.

Given their once-firm stance against LIV, it is frankly astonishing the u-turn that Monahan and the PGA Tour have pulled. The reportedly private actions of Monahan and a few other PGA tour executives working with LIV and DP representatives and seemingly totally independent of any PGA player will leave many with a case of whiplash. Players such as the greatest golfer of all time, Tiger Woods, and the generational talent, Rory McIlroy, who stood firmly alongside the PGA, have now forsaken the chance to earn millions of dollars for the sake of a moral and principled position that has been pulled out from under them.

At times like this, the notion that politics should be kept out of sports begins to be bandied about by both sides, such as in the recent FIFA Men’s Football World Cup hosted in Qatar. The notion that sports cannot be political is simply ridiculous. What we are seeing now, though, is a whole new breed of sporting politics with an ever-growing strategic soft power game of ‘sports washing’. It remains to be seen if this and other current Saudi Arabian sporting ventures will last long-term or if they will follow a similar path to Chinese investment in European football in the mid-2010s. A short but bright burst.

Two things are for sure, though: golf will never be the same, and Monahan will only be saying one thing now: Show Me the Money.