After a year-plus of acrimony, lawsuits, and counter-lawsuits, today the PGA and the DP World Tour announced an agreement to merge with the breakaway LIV Golf League, which is owned and funded by the Saudi government. The agreement also will bring to an end the various legal actions.
Apparently, this agreement was reached without the knowledge of most of the players; this ESPN article quotes:
In the end, it is always about the money.
Wait, does that mean the PGA’s objection to LIV wasn’t founded on their horror at the Saudi government’s attempts to whitewash their human rights abuses? I’m shocked, shocked!
Another victory for evil.
It’s been around for a long time, but I only recently learned about the term sportswashing. Why build a good rep if you can just buy one?
The PGA famously dissociated themselves from Trump after the Jan 6 riots, cancelling the planned 2022 championship tournament at Trump’s Bedminster course. Meanwhile the LIV has already given Trump several tournaments and had plans for more. The question I now wonder about is what the policy of this merged organization will be.
Existing thread below. These should be merged.
Agreed; I’ll flag it for a merge.
[Moderating]
This is a significant enough development that I think a new thread is reasonable. This thread can remain separate and open.
This makes me sick to my stomach. After what Jay Monahan said and did last year and what he’s now done should make him ashamed. He should never speak of a 911 family again.
I have never watched or supported golf so I won’t make a bit of difference to anybody, but I hope that they choke on the filthy fucking money they got for this.
I will boycott any sponsors unless it’s impossible to do.
Uh…what? Is the PGA owned in part(entirely?) by Saudi Arabia now? This is ridiculous.
I don’t have much of an opinion on this, but it seems very surprising.
Started an equivalent thread without realizing this one was already open (thanks, @wolfpup), so I copy & paste my post here:
The NYT gift link, but probably being reported everywhere else too:
For-profit entity, indeed. And for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Saudi Arabia and probably the Trump/Kushner family too (no prove on that except for the smell). Wonder how many people knew about this deal yesterday (remember: the PGA is a player’s association) and how much money may they have pocketed?
How long do you reckon will it take until everything is back to normal, all grudges forgotten and everybody loves this game and praises the great contribution the Saudis are making to world peace, love, understanding and the advancement of science and philosophy?
My personal opinion: one more reason to ignore golf.
WWE’s been doing it for years now - Saudi Arabia pays them $50 million a pop to host a PPV there twice a year, and they drag all the old-timers like Undertaker and Shawn Michaels and Goldberg out of mothballs to do their thing for a crowd that hasn’t been exposed to any western media in decades and might not even know wrestling is predetermined. The kingdom was even on the shortlist of bidders to buy the company earlier this year before they decided to merge with UFC.
It’s pretty gross and a lot of wrestlers refuse to work the Saudi shows.
I never followed pro golf anyway, unless you count putting it on TV when I am about to take a nap. Now I will care even less. I used to watch and follow and enjoy pro cycling, getting up early to watch the Tour de France every July, but after the multiple doping scandals I lost interest there years ago. I’ll toss pro golf into the same waste bin now. Sportwashing, indeed - eff them.
“It’s a shame nobody ever got to the bottom of 9/11.”
Trump right now, probably.
I wonder if Jay Monahan told the Saudis to just leave the money on the bedside table…
Pro golf is about the only sport I followed over the past few years, tho I pretty much stopped watching after we gave up cable.
I’ve gotten less and less interested over recent years as the schedule changed and expanded. I used to like the season beginning in Jan with 2 weeks in Hawaii, and the “silly season” in Nov-Dec. I DID, however, eventually come to appreciate some aspects of the season ending tourney.
LIV lessened my interest, as the best golfers weren’t playing in all of the PGA events (and I had ZERO interest in following LIV.) I appreciated what DJ (one of my faves) said on that Netflix show (paraphrased) that he had the opportunity to work less for a lot more money. Who WOULDN’T take advantage of that?! And when asked about what he thought of how fans might react, he honestly said he didn’t care. 
My interest in golf has always sort of required some intentional suspension of my critical thinking - to think of EVERYONE involved as motivated by ANYTHING other than greed. I’ll still shoot the breeze w/ my golfing partners about the latest tournament, but I really don’t see me following golf with any interest at all.
You can tell AK84 was banned because if not he’d be in this topic insulting everyone, I remember him wrecking havoc in the Dubai World Cup topic.
Everyone’s reaction to this reminds me of my horror when WWE came so close to being bought by the Saudis. I’m still not particularly sanguine about the fact that they have semiannual shows in the Kingdom.