The US senate’s congressional hearing on the proposed deal between the PGA Tour and the Saudi PIF, backers of the breakaway LIV Golf League, has shone a dim light on just how little detail there is on the table with regards to the future partnership between the two entities.
Representatives of the PGA Tour, including PGA Tour chief operating officer Ron Price and board member Jimmy Dunne, were sworn into the hearing on Tuesday, and faced several hours of grilling from senators from both sides of the house about the extent of the deal between the PGA Tour and the Saudi PIF which was first announced on June 6.
Of the few details to emerge from the questioning, one of the main understandings was that the deal is not a merger, as was suggested in the initial announcement, and that LIV Golf will not be subsumed into the PGA Tour or the other way around, and that the Saudi PIF will invest in the new for-profit entity as a minority investor through sponsorship and prize funds.
When asked what the extent of the relationship between PGA Tour and the Saudi PIF, Dunne, the PGA Tour policy board member who helped broker the arrangement, said: “There is no merger. There is no deal. There is simply an agreement to try to get to an agreement and settle lawsuits.”
In response to Senator Richard Blumenthal’s question about the total value of the financial backing, PGA Tour COO Ron Price said the investment will be “significant…north of $1 billion.”
It is still not clear for how long the LIV Golf League will continue in its current form, although it is thought that the 2024 schedule of 14 events will go ahead, although details on that remain sketchy.
What is clear, however, is that Greg Norman, LIV Golf’s controversial commissioner, is seen as being surplus to requirements, with the PGA Tour insisting in some of its early talks with the PIF that the Australian should be dropped at the earliest opportunity. Speaking at the hearing, Dunne said “we would not have a requirement for that type of position” in direct reference to Norman’s role.
The Congressional sub-committee hearing has no powers to prevent the Saudi investment in the PGA Tour from taking place or from stopping the proposed partnership from going through.