Tom Watson says PGA Tour has ignored ‘moral issue’ in deal with LIV

Tom Watson wants answers on the PGA Tour’s new business partnership with the Saudi backers of LIV Golf. The eight-time major champion asked the PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, in a letter on Monday if the deal was the only way to solve the tour’s financial hardship.

That was one of several questions posed by Watson in the letter, which was obtained by the Associated Press. It was sent to Monahan, the PGA Tour board and “my fellow players.”

Watson said the questions were “compounded by the hypocrisy in disregarding the moral issue.”

On the day after Wyndham Clark won the US Open, focus shifted back to an issue that has consumed golf for the last three years. It took a stunning turn on 6 June when the PGA Tour announced it had joined with Saudi Arabia’s national wealth fund and the European Tour to put commercial businesses under one roof.

Monahan has referred to it as a “framework agreement” and he had few answers for players in a meeting two weeks ago at the Canadian Open. A Player Advisory Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday before the Travelers Championship in Connecticut.

The tour said in the 6 June announcement that Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, would be chairman of the new company and Monahan would be the CEO. Two PGA Tour board members, Ed Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne, would join them on the executive committee.

One key to the agreement was ending all litigation. The PGA Tour and LIV Golf filed a motion on Friday to dismiss with prejudice the antitrust lawsuit LIV players filed in August, the countersuit the tour filed in September and even a PIF court appeal to avoid having to give depositions in the lawsuits. They cannot be refiled.

Monahan has said the lawsuits – a