Brandel Chamblee, a famend Golf Channel journalist and aggressive dissident of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour, expressed nice concern following Tuesday’s bombshell information.
“I believe this is among the saddest days within the historical past {of professional} golf,” Chamblee mentioned on Golf Channel. “I do imagine the governing our bodies, the skilled entities have sacrificed their rules for revenue.”
Showing reside on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Road” with Saudi Public Funding Fund (PIF) Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan introduced that the PGA Tour had struck a merger cope with PIF, thus ending golf’s nice schism between the tour and LIV Golf.
“I believe at this time is a historic day for the PGA Tour and the sport of golf,” Monahan mentioned on this system. “It’s a historic day for the PIF and the DP World Tour… There’s been a number of pressure in our sport over the past couple of years. However what we’re speaking about at this time is coming collectively to unify the sport of golf.”
Monahan’s remarks Tuesday come virtually a 12 months after he criticized the beneficiaries of LIV Golf on a CBS broadcast.
“I’d ask any participant who has left or any participant who would think about leaving,” Monahan mentioned. “Have you ever ever needed to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”
Over the previous few years, the Saudi authorities has been accused of sportswashing—or when a authorities spends cash on a sport to overshadow corruption, discrimination, and different injustices.
But, the PGA Tour feels in another way now because it heads to the RBC Canadian Open this week.
Chamblee detailed his beliefs as to what led to this unforgettable second in golf.
“I believe there are three issues seemingly that might have led to one thing like this,” Chamblee mentioned Tuesday, “Intractable authorized points happening indefinitely into the long run with authorized vulnerability on either side and the one ones who stood to revenue from that have been the attorneys concerned.”
“The entanglement of the varied enterprise entities and sponsors that the PGA Tour has which have Saudi cash, PIF cash in them. It grew to become more and more troublesome for the PGA Tour to disentangle themselves from that scrutiny and that criticism. They have been leaving billions of {dollars} doubtlessly on the desk for the expansion of the sport.”
