Eight-time major champion Tom Watson offered a candid assessment of the many questions raised by the recently announced merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf in an open letter Monday to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan.
Watson said the Tour’s decision to join forces with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund raised “unprecedented obstacles and battles of both moral and financial consequence,” in light of the kingdom’s alleged wide-ranging human rights abuses.
Watson took issue with the secrecy under which the deal was negotiated, with PGA Tour members first hearing about it when it was announced to the public.
“In my opinion, the communication has been mishandled and the process by which the Tour agreed on a proposed partnership with PIF was executed without due process,” Watson wrote.
He also questioned whether the new agreement was the only way to address whatever financial problems the Tour may have been experiencing: “Was/is there a plan B? And again, what exactly is the exchange?”
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The move was a significant reversal for the PGA Tour, which had previously sought to claim the moral high ground and ban Tour members who defected to LIV Golf.
“I ask the Tour, how is a non-negotiable point for us one day one we negotiate around the next?” Watson asked.
Just last week, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) requested documents related to the merger and suggested that congressional hearings could be in the works. Also, the Justice Department is starting to look into whether the new agreement violates federal antitrust laws.
The deal has also drawn criticism from an organization representing families of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, over Saudi Arabia’s role in those attacks.
“My loyalty to golf and this country live in the same place and have held equal and significant weight with me over my lifetime,” Watson said. “Please educate me and others in a way that allows loyalty to both, and in a way that makes it easy to look 9/11 families in the eye and ourselves in the mirror.”
