Two top PGA Tour officials will meet with US lawmakers today on Capitol Hill and plan to tell them that Saudi Arabia would have little sway over the golf business if a proposed merger with LIV Golf goes through, according to Bloomberg.
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is holding a hearing on Tuesday that’s expected to explore what the PGA Tour-LIV combination would mean for the sport and for Saudi Arabia’s influence in the US, according to the report. The report said that Ron Price, PGA Tour’s chief operating officer, and Jimmy Dunne, a PGA Tour policy board member who helped negotiate the deal, will defend the pact by saying Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, LIV’s biggest backer, will be only a minority investor in the combined enterprise and that the US Tour will drive the future of the pro golf business, according to a person familiar with the PGA’s thinking.
The PGA Tour and LIV announced on June 6 the creation of a new entity that would combine their assets, as well as those of the DP World Tour, and radically change golf’s governance.
