Did money trump morality in the merger between the PGA and LIV Golf?

A “hypocrite” is one of the many words PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan has been called over the last week, after he announced a partnership between the PGA and Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf.

Until now, the PGA had resisted cooperation with the rival tour, citing the Saudi government’s history of human rights abuses, including the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the U.S. concluded was personally ordered by Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

Soundside host Libby Denkmann talked to Seattle Times columnist Larry Stone about the merger. To Stone, the PGA Tour just committed "the most blatant capitulation in the history of sports."

"There's certainly a segment of fans who will rebel against this, because they feel that the PGA has sold out," Stone said. "But I think there's an equal, if not larger group of fans who just love to watch golf and don't want to get involved in the politics of it and will just enjoy the good golf and look forward to the prospect of everyone being back together."

The PGA Tour is the foundation of professional golf, and, up until a few years ago, it was largely unrivaled in terms of revenue and popularity.

But in 2021, a rival appeared on the green: LIV Golf, a professional golf tour funded by the Public Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.

With a reported $620 billion in assets, LIV Golf was able to lure numerous PGA players to switch over to their tour instead.

"We're talking in the neighborhood of hundreds of millions of dollars for some of the prominent players," Stone said. "The rumor was that Tiger Woods — he would have been the prize — and he was offered $800 million and turned it down."

But even with huge names joining the tour, LIV Golf hasn't been able to capture the ratings and popularity of the PGA Tour. Both organizations have also been wrapped up in lawsuits aimed at each other for antitrust violations.

So why would the PGA Tour agree to a deal?

"I think that [the PGA Tour] saw how lucrative this could be to join forces with a partner that has an unlimited bankroll," Stone said. "But more than that, these legal cases that were raging in court, the antitrust violations and contract violations, the PGA has a limited amount of money, even though they're hugely profitable and everything, but nothing compared to the $620 billion fund that the Saudis have. They could they could fight this forever."

Listen to the full interview above