PGA and LIV: Together at Last

By : Ross Mazin

 Earlier this week, LIV and the PGA Tour decided to merge along with the DP tour. I don’t think anyone saw this coming. LIV is the Saudi-backed golf league and has frequently been accused of sports whitewashing. The pact is complicated and incomplete, and numerous golfers hate it. They are directing their wrath at the architects of the deal. The proposed merger between the PGA Tour and its Saudi-funded rival LIV Golf stunned everyone from golfers to Wall Street bankers this week – leaving many with questions about what the merger could mean. The deal was announced following months of feuding and antitrust lawsuits between the two leagues. The agreement would end all pending litigation.

For months, Rory McIlroy walked the ramparts of the PGA Tour fortress, besieged by the Saudi-funded LIV Golf. He and other holdouts spoke about staying true to the PGA’s traditions, even as their peers accepted millions and millions of dollars in incentive money and guaranteed payouts to join its rival. McIlroy says he feels like “a sacrificial lamb” after the PGA Tour made a deal to merge with LIV Golf’s backers, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. That’s not all he’s feeling: McIlroy ranked the world’s No. 3, still sees LIV Golf as the enemy. “I still hate LIV. Like, I hate it. I hope it goes away, and I will fully expect that it. McIlroy acknowledged that if he sets his personal feelings aside, the deal might prove to be a good thing for pro golf. But he also said many details still need to be worked out — from how to compensate golfers who stuck with the PGA to how to handle pros who want to return from LIV. Observers say it’s the Saudis’ latest attempt to flex their influence across a breadth of American institutions, from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, and mine economic opportunities despite tense relations with the West in recent years brought on by accusations of human rights abuses and the 2018 killing of journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi. “This is a huge feather in the cap of the Saudis, and it’s a huge victory for them on a number of levels,” said Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University who has written about political and social changes in the count