Is the PGA-LIV Merger in Danger of Falling Through?

After nearly a month of questions and concerns about the PGA merging with the Saudi-Backed LIV Golf, the United States Government seems like it is ready to step in and put an end to this monumental merger for the sport of golf.

The United States Senate laid into the PGA Tour officials over their plans to merge with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf during a Tuesday hearing. Both Democrats and Republicans spent the majority of the hearing grilling the tour for their merger with LIV Golf.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee of Homeland Security on Investigations heard testimony from PGA Tour Chief Operating Officer Ron Price and board member Jimmy Dunne – who is the president of Seminole Golf Club and is credited by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan for sealing the deal that led to the Tour and LIV Golf joining forces – argued a proposed framework for the deal would allow expensive legal fights and fracturing player and fan base to end.

"There is simply an agreement to try to get to an agreement," said Dunne when he was speaking with Congress on Tuesday during a three-hour hearing about the potential PGA-LIV merger. “We have nothing to gain except the sense of pride that we helped unite the game we love.”

Both Dunne and Ron Price made statements that were painting Saudi Arabia’s Public Fund in a more positive light and claimed that this merger would only benefit the PGA more than it would benefit the Saudi Backed LIV Golf.

“If a deal was to get done, the tour would definitely stay intact and become more powerful,” said Dunne in his statements made to the committee on Tuesday. “(I) hope PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan would have a ‘more productive role in the game of golf’ in a more constructive way.”

According to Price’s testimony, he claimed that the United States based golf tour did not seek out the Saudi’s about a merger.

“We are in a situation where we faced a real threat.” said Price, “you could go elsewhere for $1 billion, $3 billion, maybe $50 billion. We could do it but if we went down that path, we would end up giving up total control.”

What the public did learn from the hearing is that a deal isn’t necessarily in place, but there is a deal that they would discuss a deal where both golf tours merge into one big golf tour. According to Business Insider, there were some very interesting pieces to this deal that discussed what the merger would look like if it went through.

LIV Golf representatives and the PIF – better known as the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia – were not present during this hearing.

As part of the deal, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy – who is LIV Golf’s biggest critic – would be given ownership of two teams in LIV Golf and they would commit to playing in 10 LIV events during their ownership tenure. LIV also proposed the idea of a "World Golf Series" team event that would be held every year with the championship being in Saudi Arabia. Two PGA Tour events would be sponsored by either Aramco, the Saudi oil giant, or the PIF with one of those two events being played in Saudi Arabia. LIV Golf players would be given points in the Official World Golf Rankings and LIV Golf would only play in the fall and not overlap with the heart of the PGA Tour season.

Ron Price and Jimmy Dunne in front of Congress File Photo

One part of the deal has been thrown out of their original agreement which was a non-solicitation clause, which said the tour and wealth fund-backed LIV Golf league would not “enter into any contract, agreement or understanding with” any “players who are members of the other’s tour or organization.”

According to the New York Times, The agreement also said the tour and LIV would not “solicit” or “recruit” players away from each other during their partnership.

The non-solicitation clause was a short-term way to stop the exodus while the tour and the wealth fund negotiated the final terms for their new company, which would bring the golf business ventures of the PGA and the Saudi funded LIV into a single entity.

Members of congress, both democrats and republicans, have been vocal about the negatives of the deal being done with the Saudi backed tour. Most of the criticism has been due to the nation's involvement in the September 11th Attacks and their recent attempts to “sports wash” the world in an attempt to take attention away from their terroristic support.

“A regime that has killed journalists, jailed and tortured dissidents, fostered the war in Yemen, and supported other terrorist activities, including 9/11. It’s called sportswashing,” subcommittee chairman Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a democrat from Connecticut, said in a statement on Tuesday. “Today’s hearing is about much more than the game of golf. It is about how a brutal, repressive regime can buy influence—indeed even take over—a cherished American institution simply to cleanse its public image.”

The Democratic Representative from Connecticut has been at the forefront of this as his comments have been Anti-Saudi before and during the congressional hearing, putting the American people and those affected by the 9/11 attacks first while criticizing PGA commissioner Jay Monahan for going back on his prior statements about LIV Golf.

While Blumenthal was ripping the PGA representatives apart during the hearing, Wisconsin Republican and subcommittee member Ron Johnson chose to take a more easygoing and gentile approach.

“The PGA was faced with an existential threat and this is what they’re trying to do to preserve the game of golf and the purity of the competition at the highest level,” Johnson told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” before the hearing Tuesday. “Listen, I have the deepest sympathy for the 9/11 families. I understand the issue of ‘sportswashing.’ I don’t think there’s enough billions of dollars for the Saudis to wash away the stain of the brutal [Jamal] Khashoggi murder,” Johnson added. “But the reality is we all buy oil. We drive cars. We are the ones filling up the coffers of the [Public] Investment Fund. I would rather have the Saudis invest their oil wealth in the U.S., rather than China or Russia, that’s just a reality of the world.”

All these comments and committee meetings come after the announcement that LIV will be holding their championship tournament at Former President and current front runner to win the Republican Nomination Donald Trump's Doral resort in Miami, Florida.

The three-day team championship was originally scheduled to be played Nov. 3-5 at Royal Greens Golf and Country Club in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. LIV Golf League officials have been working to move it back to Trump National Doral, where it was staged in the league's inaugural season in 2022. The Jeddah event, now scheduled for Oct. 13-15, will be the final regular-season tournament.

”We're thrilled to return to the Blue Monster at Doral to celebrate a historic year and crown the 2023 LIV Golf League team champion,” LIV Golf CEO and commissioner Greg Norman said in a statement Monday, prior to the hearings in front of congress. “The team concept has come to life this year in exciting new ways as our players and fans embrace the launch of team golf. We're building up for an action-packed weekend with headline entertainment that will put an exclamation point on another can't-miss LIV Golf event.”

Norman, 68, was not present during the hearings due to being out of the country during the time of the hearing. “The Great White Shark” has become a controversial figure in the golf world as he is the CEO and investor into LIV Golf. It was announced earlier this week that if the PGA/LIV merger goes through, he would be forced to step down as CEO of the LIV as the position would no longer exist.