To the lamentable list of unwanted people visited on the professional male golf – deep division, sneaky resentment, bare greed, crawling right – we can add a cheeky darkness, evidenced by the declaration of Thursday in which The PGA Tower Commissioner Jay Monahan and the players Adam Scott and Tiger Woods had to mobilize the Mussolini mango ego To help guarantee government approval for an agreement to bring together sport.
“We would like to thank President Trump for his interest and his long -stand support for golf. We asked the president to get involved for the good of the game, the good of the country and for all the countries involved, “said the press release, which implies that the question of golfers plays and how paid they are paid to a geopolitical crisis. “We are grateful that his management has brought us closer to a final agreement, opening the way to the reunification of male professional golf.”
Liberation is a calculated exercise of firing meat taken, praising a man who boasted that he could negotiate an agreement between the tour and the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia in 15 minutes, But who was too busy his first two weeks in power to solve golf problems. The call to Trump to get involved does not stop suggesting how specifically he could do so, although to haste (or short-circuit) the examination process of the Ministry of Justice is the most obvious means. The PIF did not prostrate itself by the press release and may not do so, because it has listed $ 2 billion in a venture capital fund belonging to Trump’s son-in-law. In the courtyard of King Donny, those who can pay, pay. Those who cannot, flatter.
The fun toadyism of the tour affects the work of many within the organization – including the signatories of the declaration – in cooperation with the antitrust regulators who examine the terms of an agreement proposed with the Saudis. The tour has embarked on an intense dialogue with the Ministry of Justice since the signing of the framework agreement in June 23, and in particular in the last six months. Justice has before several versions of an agreement, each has been slightly modified differently to respond to the concerns that could be reported, including options based on Saudi investment in PGA Tour companies and at least one based on a simple sponsorship .
The tour has submitted all the discovery documents requested, but several sources claim that Ponte Vedra has no glimpse of whether the Saudis also did. Pif has distorted itself to avoid the discovery of its American investments (known and stealthy) during the dispute of the VIV-PGA Tour, so complete conformity seems unlikely. It is not known if there has been sufficient compliance for the DoJ.
For months, tour leaders patiently waited for government regulators to complete the legal process and the green light advances. It could have happened at any time in the decreasing months of the Biden administration, but this is not the case. He could also have arrived any day in the first months of the Trump administration, by completely legitimate means and without appearance of interference. The tour can still make the decision it wants after a fair process that did not recommend or disadvantage the parties involved, but this press release will lose many people convinced that the process has been corrupt, even if it is not the case.
For all criticisms intended for Monahan in recent years – a lot of justified things – he has proven himself a more wise operator than credit. He managed the key relations necessary to see an agreement on the finish line – with the governor of Pif Yasir al -Rumayyan; with strategic investors of sports groups; with the few players on the tour that count; And since the elections, with Trump. He surely understands that complying with a legal process may not be enough now, that flattery can grease the skates and not flatter the risks erase works. He therefore engaged in the presidential puffier, Trump platform to claim a credit for negotiations in which he did not play any significant role.
This could help the PGA Tour in the short term, but does not do any favor for a sport already tarnished by sports washing and greed. However, the ugly optics will not disturb golf leaders who are impatient to move.
Even when the Ministry of Justice raises an inch of truncated cheeto, a long road awaits us. Although the macro points of an agreement were widely agreed between the tour and the PIF, the negotiations continue on the appearance of the golf landscape in the microphone. These decisions will have huge ramifications: for events, sponsors and players of the PGA Tour; For the DP World Tour, which will shape a new global calendar; And for Liv, a failed madness that will remain on support for life for a while, in particular because Al-Rumayyan has been convinced by the pricing courtiers that the Golf team is a source of unusual wealth.
Somewhere along the way, perhaps soon, golf fans will be faced with a new reality which is wasted by many of their prized standards. In this regard, sport has never been more closely like America.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Lynch: publicly flatter Donald Trump becomes the least pain of Pga Tour
