PGA Tour Chief Operating Officer Ron Price, left, and PGA Tour board member Jimmy Dunne are sworn in before testifying at a Senate hearing on the proposed PGA Tour-LIV Golf partnership on July 11.
Patrick Semansky/AP
Senate Democrats and Republicans grilled PGA Tour officials over their plans to merge with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf during a Tuesday hearing.
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations heard testimony from PGA Tour Chief Operating Officer Ron Price and board member Jimmy Dunne, who argued a proposed framework for the deal would allow expensive legal fights and fracturing player and fan base to end.
“Sports are central to our culture and society, they have huge implications for our way of life, our economies and our communities,” said Rep. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., later calling the deal a “sell out.”
“Athletes like the PGA Tour golf players are role models, they are ambassadors of our values and the institutions that concern us today are vital to our national interests,” Blumenthal said. “To have them taken over by a repressive foreign regime certainly is a matter of our national security.”
The hearing comes a month after the PGA, the world’s leading professional golf league, agreed to merge with LIV Golf, the Saudi-funded upstart league. The two leagues were fierce competitors until the announced merger, with lawsuits and countersuits, as well as a battle over golf’s biggest names.
Price raised concern that PGA runs the threat of “a $700 billion fund recruiting our players and operating a league in an irrational economic matter.”
Some PGA players resisted the massive financial incentives to join LIV because …
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