Senate calls PGA, LIV leaders to testify for merger investigation

A Senate investigative subcommittee has asked the leaders of the PGA and LIV to testify in person at a hearing scheduled for July 11.

Earlier this week, Sen Richard Blumenthal, who chairs the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and Sen. Ron Johnson, the subcommittee’s ranking member, sent letters, detailing their ask for a hearing appearance. The subcommittee specifically wants LIV CEO Greg Norman, PGA commissioner Jay Monahan and Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudia Arabian Public Investment Fund, to testify. The subcommittee is an arm of the Senate’s Homeland Security committee.

The letter said the committee is seeking more information about the merger.The letter said that Saudi Arabia’s “investment in golf in the United States, the future of the PIF-funded LIV Golf, the risks associated with a foreign government’s investment in American cultural institutions, and the implications of this planned agreement on professional golf in the United States going forward.”

The committee also indicated it would welcome current players on the PGA or LIV tour to testify at the hearing.

PGA-LIV merger announcement shocked the golfers

Earlier this month, Blumenthal appearanced on CBS news program Face the Nation. And he spoke about why the Senate is interested in the PGA-LIV marriage..

“The Saudis have been very explicit that they have a strategic objective here,” Blumenthal said. “They’ve been engaged in numerous malign activities antithetical to American interests and values, killing Jamal Khashoggi, as you mentioned, as well as other journalists, torturing and imprisoning dissidents and critics and supporting anti-democratic activities, even terrorist activities, like 9/11, as well as the internal war in Yemen.” 

“So there’s a real risk to American interests in the Saudis taking over this American institution,” he said. “We want to get to the bottom of it.”

The PGA and LIV announced June 6 that they were merging. The news was shocking and controversial. The fledgling league had plied away some of the biggest names in golf by paying huge signing bonuses. Phil Mickelson, who was the first big name to sign with LIV, reportedly received $200 million. Brooks Koepka’s signing bonis was $100 million. The merger announcement came days after Kopeka won the PGA, one of golf’s four majors.

The league offered pro golfers less work for far more money. LIV tournaments are only three days as opposed to the four days for PGA events. Critics blasted LIV for what’s called sportswashing to distract from some of Saudi Arabia’s egregious human rights violations.

Then, without alerting the golfers beforehand, the PGA announced the merger. LIV and PGA also dropped their lawsuits against each other.

“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” PGA commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement to the media. Monahan described the merger as “transformational.”