The Basque golfer Jon Rahm has spoken about the recent agreement between the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the LIV Golf and has assured that “many people feel a bit of betrayal” and that “there are still too many questions that need to be answered” . “I think there comes a point where you want to have faith in management, and I want to have faith that this is what’s best for all of us. But clearly that’s not the consensus. I think the general feeling is that a lot of people feel a bit of treason”, has manifested the one of Barrika.
“It’s not easy for a player who’s been involved (in the PGA Tour), like many others, to wake up one day and see this bombshell. So we’re all in a bit of a state of limbo because we don’t know what’s going on. happening,” he added about it. “It’s a state of uncertainty that we don’t like, but in the end I’m not a business expert. Some of those guys on the board and involved in this are. So I’d like to think they’re going to make a better decision than I am.” , but I don’t know. We’ll see. There are still too many questions that need to be answered,” he stressed.
The mysterious agreement has caught all of golf by surprise. The number one in the world, Scottie Scheffler, has acknowledged having “no idea” about this merger. He was at the gym (when the news broke). He really didn’t know what was going on. I still have no idea,” Scheffler said at a news conference ahead of the start of the US Open in Los Angeles.
Much of the conversation these days in Los Angeles has to do with this alliance. A debate that has even moved to politics. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal began an investigation on Monday into the merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, announced on June 6, due to the “serious questions” generated by the possible involvement of the Government of Saudi Arabia.
The Democratic senator called the merger “worrying” because of the role of Saudi Arabian authorities “in influencing this effort and the risks of a foreign government entity assuming control of a valued US institution.”
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) owns LIV Golf, an alternative league created on the fly and launched in 2022. From its inception, and until the unexpected merger announcement on June 6, LIV Golf and the PGA Tour have been at constant war over the Saudi league’s controversial strategy to recruit golfers.
In a letter to Australian Greg Norman, the CEO of LIV Golf, Blumenthal highlighted Saudi Arabia’s “deeply troubling human rights record” and the Saudi authorities’ intention to invest in sports to “advance the strategic objectives” of the Riyadh authorities. Relatives of victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the US have criticized the merger agreement. The families have been calling for an in-depth investigation into possible links between the perpetrators of the attacks and the Saudi authorities for years.
