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The PGA Tour found itself dealing with plenty of backlash when it agreed to a tentative merger with LIV Golf last year centered around a massive influx of cash from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and it’s facing scrutiny yet thanks to some questionable decisions concerning the timing and venue for a meeting between the two sides.
Over the past few years, the world of golf has spawned an unprecedented amount of drama thanks to the advent of LIV Golf, the upstart league that managed to poach some of the best players on the PGA Tour with the help of the virtually endless amount of cash in the Public Investment Fund fueled by the oil money at Saudi Arabia’s disposal.
Much of the backlash LIV Golf has been subjected to stems from the belief Saudi Arabia is using the PIF to engage in “sportswashing,” a term that refers to a country’s effort to clean up its reputation with the help of metaphorical shiny objects that are harnessed to distract from its darker side—like an abysmal human rights record, the state-sanctioned murder of a journalist, and evidence that suggests the country’s government played an instrumental role in orchestrating the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan used those alleged ties to one of the darkest days in American history to criticize LIV Golf before he was justifiably called out by families of the victims for pushing those concerns aside after the PIF expressed interest in investing in the summer of 2023—a stunning development that is still in limbo more than a year after the news broke.
However, it appears there’s a chance some progress will be made based on a report from ESPN that says members of the PGA Tour board (including Tiger Woods and Adam Scott) headed to New York City on Tuesday to meet with a delegation representing the PIF in the hopes of bringing the deal closer to the finish line.
Of course, there are a number of other people who headed to NYC this week for a different reason, as CNN’s Jake Tapper shared a statement that was put together by 9/11 Justice (a group comprised of “survivors, first responders, and family members of those lost”) that tore into the PGA Tour for convening in the metropolis where the Twin Towers once stood on the eve of the 23rd anniversary of the attack.
From @eaglesonbrett’s group: https://t.co/yYb0oNgO15 pic.twitter.com/Kjq5rroFS1
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 10, 2024
This is pretty clearly just a case of incredibly unfortunate timing, but it was still an equally incredibly unforced error on the part of the PGA Tour.