PGA Tour’s controversial merger with Saudi-funded LIV Golf faces new threat

Political opposition against the PGA Tour’s merger with the Saudi Arabia-funded LIV Tour is growing in the United States amid signs that powerful congressional interests in Washington are preparing to go to battle with the kingdom over the deal.

The proposed merger, which also involves the DP World Tour, is facing two separate Senate investigations, both launched this week, and a new threat by the chairman of the Senate finance committee, who said he would introduce legislation to revoke Saudi’s state-backed fund’s tax exempt status.

“The PGA Tour’s involvement with the PIF [Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund] raises significant questions about whether organisations that tie themselves to an authoritarian regime that has continually undermined the rule of law should continue to enjoy tax-exempt status in the United States,” Ron Wyden, the Democratic chairman of the finance committee and one of the toughest critics of Saudi Arabia on Capitol Hill, wrote in a letter to the PGA’s management.

In the four-page letter to PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, and chairman, Ed Herlihy, Wyden demanded to be provided detailed information about issues ranging from the players’ free speech rights, to the structure of the deal and compensation of managers, to whether the PIF’s potential ownership of US real estate posed a threat to national security.

Washington has a long history of disrupting proposed mergers and acquisition that are politically unpalatable, and the PGA’s shock announcement that alongside the DP World Tour, formerly the European Tour, it had agreed to a merger with the Saudi’s LIV Tour – following a year of bitter litigation between the parties and which in effect would mean Saudi Arabia taking control of top-level