PGA Tour Players and Fans Are Out for Blood, Specifically Monahan’s
LIV Golf and the PGA Tour will reportedly be merging, but this marriage is already off to a rocky start after the outrage that followed the announcement in the most recent golf news.
Rory McIlroy, one of the PGA Tour’s most outspoken loyalists against LIV Golf, addressed the media for the first time since the Tour announced it is forming a partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the DP World Tour.
More: https://t.co/tVnK1W2YmB pic.twitter.com/Oq5E9sgLPe
— ESPN (@espn) June 7, 2023
Hypocrisy – Thy Name Is Monahan
I have a begrudging admiration for people in the public eye who humiliate themselves yet keep on truckin’ as if nothing happened.
Get caught cheating on your spouse – “Made a mistake, what’s for lunch?”
Sex tape leaked – “On behalf of my family I’d appreciate it if you would respect our privacy at this difficult time…is my ass really as fat as it looked?”
Or how about this one – Weaponizing the memory of the 9/11 attacks as a tool against a business rival – “I have two families that are close to me that lost loved ones. My heart goes out to them, and I would ask that any player that has left, or that would ever consider leaving, have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?” said Jay Monahan, PGA Commissioner regarding those leaving for the big money of Saudi-backed LIV Golf.
Jay Monahan, Commissioner of the PGA TOUR, using 9/11 to shame players last year for taking life changing money from LIV…
Now, he has no problem with the money and merges LIV Golf with the PGA. Disgusting.pic.twitter.com/CUhIodZIpi
— Stephen Geiger (@Stephen_Geiger) June 6, 2023
But once said rival became the PGA’s business partner, Monahan had a different spin on things – “I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite. Anytime I said anything, I said it with the information that I had at that moment, and I said it based on someone that’s trying to compete for the PGA Tour and our players. I accept those criticisms. But circumstances do change. I think that in looking at the big picture and looking at it this way, that’s what got us to this point.”
Me, I make a drunk tweet in which I actually announce that I’m drunk and reveal I’ve always had a soft spot for old women’s perfume which is why I like to hug them. I wake up the next day, take a look at my literary disaster and I not only want to delete my account but change my name.
But not Jay Monahan, no siree, he’s cut from the same cloth as Bill Clinton who taught us a hummer does not constitute sexual relations and went about his life as if a saucy little intern named Monica never existed.
Yeah, I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little bit jealous I can’t do that.
Holy Fallout!
The proposed merger between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour will form a yet-to-be-named entity with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan as chairman and PGA Tour Chairman Jay Monahan as CEO.
PGA Tour agrees to merge with Saudi-backed rival LIV Golf. Sportswashing on a whole other level. #SaudiArabia #MBS pic.twitter.com/Pi7N0ieqM4
— Michael de Adder (@deAdder) June 6, 2023
As many PGA Tour news have reported, a part of the agreement is that the Saudi PIF is now the exclusive investor in the new golf entity and owns the right of first refusal on any new investment. But now the Department of Justice is looking into the deal and the outrage initially expressed by PGA Chairman Jay Monahan when castigating those former members who took the money and ran to LIV has been revealed as nothing but sanctimonious pap.
“Look, I think Jay does a good job for us. I do,” said Ryan Armour, a member of the 16-member Player Advisory Council, which met via conference call after the player meeting attended by about 80 players. “I think he is a very smart man. The way he handled the challenges with Covid, got us through the crisis, he showed great leadership. But there’s a lot of disappointment today. What I have been told by my peers is that they feel betrayed right now. There must have been 20-25 guys who used that word. They feel backstabbed. And they feel slighted.”
🚨😤 JUST IN: Johnson Wagner who attended the players meeting with Jay Monahan says players are furious: “There was a lot of anger in that room from players.” + “Players were calling for resignation.”
— NUCLR GOLF (@NUCLRGOLF) June 6, 2023
North Carolina-based sports reporter Pat Welter wrote on Twitter, “The hypocrisy is obvious. The PGA Tour takes the Saudi money after 2 years of grandstanding against it. They sold their soul to #LIVGolf and where it’s really going to cost them is control. Because the person signing the checks always wins.”
USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennan called the move “a total wimp-out by the PGA Tour. Just an awful about-face,” saying the organization “caved to Saudi blood money. PGA Tour now in sportswashing business.”
Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy wrote in a Twitter post, “So weird. PGA officials were in my office just months ago talking about how the Saudis’ human rights record should disqualify them from having a stake in a major American sport. I guess maybe their concerns weren’t really about human rights?”
So weird. PGA officials were in my office just months ago talking about how the Saudis’ human rights record should disqualify them from having a stake in a major American sport.
I guess maybe their concerns weren’t really about human rights? https://t.co/SQ9HQuBsNT
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 6, 2023
9/11 Families United issued the following statement, “PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan co-opted the 9/11 community last year in the PGA’s unequivocal agreement that the Saudi LIV project was nothing more than sportswashing of Saudi Arabia’s reputation,” the group said in a statement Tuesday. “But now the PGA and Monahan appear to have become just more paid Saudi shills.”
But there was a small measure of support from the LIV players who were once the object of Monahan’s ire. Bryson DeChambeau, an early recruit to the LIV Tour, told CNN that the merger “is the best thing that could ever happen for the game of golf and I am extremely proud to get to be a part of that […] in the end, the game of golf wins.”
Bryson DeChambeau, an early recruit to the Saudi-backed LIV tour, on the PGA merger shocker and criticism from the families of 9/11 victims: pic.twitter.com/i1R6AWjw1Z
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) June 7, 2023
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