This U.S. Senator is worried about the ‘purity’ of golf ahead of next week’s PGA Tour, PIF, LIV Golf hearings

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson has one main concern when it comes to the deal between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed Public Investment Fund: maintaining what he calls the “purity” of golf.

Ahead of a Senate hearing scheduled for Tuesday on the tentative deal, Johnson suggested he sees the agreement between the major golf organizations as necessary to preserve competition of play in the sport. He acknowledged concerns over PIF and LIV Golf’s ties to Saudi Arabia but said he wants to play a “constructive” role in bridging the gap between the two groups.

“The fact of the matter is the Public Investment Fund … if they want to invest in global sports, they’re going to invest in global sports, and you have to recognize and react to that reality,” Johnson said of Saudi Arabia in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Thursday. “I think that’s what the PGA in the end was faced with.”

“You may not like that reality. I hated to see what happened with the split, with the players at each other’s throats,” he added, referencing the creation of LIV in 2021 as a direct competitor to the PGA Tour that caused a rift in the golf community. “And I’m hoping to play a constructive role in helping bridge that gap, repair the breach.”

Two PGA Tour officials — Ron Price, the tour’s chief operating officer, and Jimmy Dunne, a PGA board member who helped broker the deal — will testify Tuesday before the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, on which Johnson is the top Republican.

More:PGA Tour says deal with LIV Golf is not a merger. So what is it? Here’s what we know

It’s expected to be a closely watched hearing, with lawmakers in recent weeks raising antitrust concerns and worries over Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.

Here’s what Johnson is saying about the deal ahead of Tuesday’s hearing.

Johnson wants to see ‘purity of competition’ preserved

Johnson said he initially felt that “Congress at this point shouldn’t get involved” in the merger.

But since U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut who is the subcommittee’s chairman, initiated the inquiry, Johnson said he wants to make sure the “purity of the competition” is maintained in the new for-profit entity that would be created after the planned merger.

PGA Tour events are contested over 72 holes with the field cut at 36 holes. Nothing is guaranteed, even for the greats. The tour plans to alter some events next year. It’s a response to the LIV format of 54-hole, no-cut competitions with team and individual winners.

In an interview, Johnson indicated he would like to see the competitive nature of the PGA Tour remain unchanged by Saudi Arabian involvement and pointed to a framework agreement between the two parties that would give the PGA Tour regulatory oversight over the game of golf.

“It’s just not the same thing,” Johnson said of the competition in the LIV compared to the PGA Tour. “And that’s certainly what I want to make sure is preserved — is the purity of the competition.”

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson will be part of a Senate hearing on Tuesday regarding the PGA Tour and LIV Golf deal.

What are the concerns with the deal?

The deal drew quick criticisms from both PGA Tour fans and lawmakers on Capitol Hill following its surprise announcement in early June.

Some lawmakers have questioned whether the deal, which would effectively create a single international golf organization, violates antitrust law. And Senate Democrats have said the deal raises questions about allowing a country with a history of human rights abuses to have a major stake in a U.S. institution, accusing Saudi Arabia of “sportswashing” their record.

In a letter to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan last month, Blumenthal said the tour’s decision to make a deal with LIV after being in outspoken opposition to the group — they suspended players who joined LIV — raises “serious questions regarding the reasons for and terms behind the announced agreement.”

Johnson on Thursday called antitrust concerns “a legitimate issue” but indicated he believed courts would rule “in favor of sports competition.”

“In general, they’ve looked past those technical violations and say it’s necessary for these sports leagues to cooperate, to collude, in order to maintain the type of competition that the public wants and I would say even demands,” Johnson said of antitrust decisions.

What about ‘sportswashing’?

Johnson said he, too, has concerns over Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, noting he doesn’t think “there’s anything the Saudis can do to wash away” abuses like the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The term sportswashing refers to a country’s attempt to use sports to improve its image. Saudi Arabia has made inroads into a number of sports, including with the purchase of professional soccer clubs and players, in recent years.

“There are certain realities that you simply can’t wash away,” Johnson said. “They may attempt to do it. I’m not sure how good their attempt will ever be, because as we’re talking here, everybody is fully mindful of the, as I said, the Khashoggi assassination.”

But he said the deal brokered by Dunne, the PGA Tour board member, was “for the good of the game of golf” and suggested working with a country like Saudi Arabia, whose investment fund reaches into the $700 billions, could be a fact of life.

“Should we be buying oil from Saudi Arabia?” Johnson quipped when asked about concerns over Saudi Arabia becoming involved in a U.S.-based organization.

“There’s just certain realities in the world that you, whether you like it or not, have to accept,” Johnson said. “One of the realities is I’d rather as a U.S. government be dealing with Saudi Arabia rather than antagonize them and have them go rushing into the arms of our adversaries like China or Russia.”

What does Johnson expect at the hearing?

Tuesday’s hearing, titled “The PGA-LIV Deal: Implications for the Future of Golf and Saudi Arabia’s Influence in the United States,” will give the PGA Tour “the opportunity to describe the challenge it faces in managing professional golf,” according to Johnson.

He said he hopes to hear from PGA Tour officials about the “existential” challenges LIV Golf posed to the tour and “why they ended up reaching out to them and trying to work with them, rather than fighting them in court, which nobody knew the outcome other than the lawyers would make a lot, a lot of money.”

He called the tentative framework “amorphous,” noting its lack of detail and unanswered questions about what golf will look like moving forward but suggested the litigation between the PGA Tour and LIV was not sustainable.

“When you’ve got unlimited funds willing to get into any kind of business venture, it’s just not a fair competition,” Johnson said. “It wasn’t a fair fight between the PGA and Saudi Arabia. It simply wasn’t.”

What’s next?

LIV Golf CEO & Commissioner Greg Norman hi-fives spectators on the 12th hole during day two of Liv Golf Adelaide at The Grange Golf Course on April 22, 2023 in Adelaide, Australia. (Photo by Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)

LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman and Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund who would serve as board chairman of the new golf entity, will not attend the hearing due to “scheduling conflicts,” Johnson and Blumenthal said.

The senators in their statement said the pair “have valuable information to share about the operations of the Public Investment Fund, the future of LIV Golf and Saudi Arabia’s plans to invest in golf and other sports.”

But Johnson on Thursday told the Journal Sentinel it was “hard to say” whether the committee would hear from either Norman or al-Rumayyan in the coming weeks.

He suggested the PGA Tour-LIV Golf deal was not top-of-mind for him.

“From my standpoint, if I were chairman of the committee, I would be concentrating on what we got wrong during the pandemic. I would be concentrating on the fact that we’re more than $32 trillion in debt,” Johnson said.

He added: “This hearing will hopefully give the PGA an opportunity to explain itself, whether the Saudis, whether the other side wants to take an opportunity to explain themselves, that would be up to them.”

(Editor’s note: This version of the story has been modified. The deal between the two sides is not, technically, considered a merger, but rather a business arrangement.)