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The dust is still settling in the wake of the bombshell development that saw the PGA Tour declare a truce with LIV Golf when the two sides agreed to a merger earlier this week.
We’ve already been treated to some details concerning what the future of professional golf may look like, as it appears LIV plans to continue to operate as its own entity while giving players who’ve defected and those who remained loyal to the PGA Tour the opportunity to participate in its team-based events.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan has understandably tried to assert the current status quo won’t be majorly altered while positioning the merger as a win for the organization.
With that said, he’s been subjected to plenty of backlash from golfers who are less than thrilled with how things went down as well as the families of 9/11 victims who’ve justifiably ripped him for using their stories to position the PGA Tour’s Saudi Arabia-funded (former) rival as the villain before happily teaming up with the country’s Public Investment Firm.
You can write thousands of words attempting to explore the various machinations that led to the merger, but at the end of the day, you really only need one to sum up how it came to be: money.
According to Sportico, that particular factor has served as the onus for a new bill that’s been drafted by a member of Congress, as Democratic Representative John Garamendi of California has introduced the “No Corporate Tax Exemption for Professional Sports Act” in the House Armed Services Committee in the hopes of stripping the PGA Tour of its longstanding tax-exempt status.
As things currently stand, the PGA Tour is designated as a 501(c) nonprofit organization and stated its intentions to preserve that status after the merger was announced.
However, Garamendi asserted it’s time for that to change while using its new relationship with Saudi Arabia to justify the proposal, telling the outlet:
“The notion that the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund would pay zero dollars in taxes on their blood money and potentially billions of dollars in profits while countless American families pay their fair share while struggling to make ends meet is ludicrous.
My common-sense legislation would right this wrong and bring some much-needed accountability to this matter.”
There’s obviously still plenty of work to be done before the bill becomes law, but you have to assume Monahan and Co. aren’t over the moon about the newfound scrutiny.