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In a big update, the PGA officials will soon appear before the US senate over the merger between PGA Tour and LIV. The two officials, COO Ron Price and board member Jimmy Dunne, agreed to testify in front of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) over the deal. The primary purpose of the Senate PSI is to investigate matters of national significance.
The PGA officials are set to testify on July 11. Speaking about the hearing, US Senator Richard Blumenthal said, “We appreciate the PGA Tour working with us and look forward to a robust, thoughtful exchange”. While PGA officials were responsive, it was significantly harder to get a hold of LIV officials. Additionally, it is also being reported that the enquiries to LIV CEO Greg Norman and PIF Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan were declined because of scheduling difficulties.
In the past, Senator Blumenthal had asked for transparency about the merger from PGA Tour citing concerns about the Saudi influence over the deal and in the wider sport of golf. It is to be noted that LIV is a Saudi-backed circuit through the middle eastern country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. Critics of LIV have accused the Saudi government of using the golf circuit and the recruitment of top players of being ‘sportswashing’, or, trying to improve the country’s reputation of violating human rights through international sporting events.
The news of the merger has taken the golfing world by storm. PGA Tour, LIV and the DP world tour were locked in a heated rivalry to dominate golf until the merger was announced, with both sides trading heavy blows. In May 2022, LIV announced that nearly a fifth of the top one hundred players in the world would participate in LIV’s first event, which led to PGA banning seventeen of the players from any future PGA events. In response LIV leveled accusations at PGA of being a “vindictive” and “illegal monopoly”. The situation came to a head when eleven LIV golfers sued PGA tour for unlawful monopoly and the PGA filed a countersuit against the golfers as well as another suit personally against chairman Al-Rumayyan. At the end of the toxic saga, and after more than a year of court-room battle, PGA-LIV-DP announced a merger to create a new, for-profit entity.
