Pga

Tuesday

John Niven

The enigma of Tiger Woods

The aim of this book is straightforward enough: a study of the Tiger Slam, the incredible 2000-01 season when Tiger Woods held the Masters, the US Open, the Open and the PGA championship all at the same time. It’s the Tiger Slam rather than the Grand Slam because purists will argue that technically (purists always argue ‘technically’) Woods did not win all four trophies in the same year: he took the British and US Opens and the PGA in 2000 and added the Masters in April 2001. Whatever. The fact remains that Woods is the only player ever to hold all four titles simultaneously. Given how transient form on the golf course is, he is likely to be the only one who will ever do so.

Wednesday

William D. Cohan

How does Michael Klein do it?

From our US edition

Soon after the stunning news broke on June 7 that LIV Golf and the PGA were burying the hatchet, dropping the litigation between them and joining forces, my phone started blowing up. My Wall Street sources were nearly dumbstruck. The deal itself was a stunner, of course, conducted so secretly by the leaders of both the PGA and LIV that the professional golfers who make the two warring organizations possible had been clueless about what was happening. But that’s not what my people wanted to discuss. All they wanted to talk about was how Michael Klein — a longtime Wall Street investment banker with an eponymous advisory firm, M. Klein & Co. — had once again tapped into his deep relationships with Saudi leaders and was representing them in the LIV merger with the PGA.

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Tuesday

Michael Bachmann

What was the point of the PGA-LIV show trial?

From our US edition

The media buzz surrounding the PGA-LIV Golf merger just won’t stop — and the Senate’s investigation on Tuesday did little to help. The hearing came across as more a show trial of moral posturing on an issue that few outside of the golfing community have been following. After nearly three hours, one question still remained unanswered: why should anyone care?  Senator Richard Blumenthal, who announced the investigation last month, appeared to be the only one in the room invested in the hearing, which included testimony from PGA Tour chief operating officer Ron Price and board member Jimmy Dunne. The other committee members came with a few obligatory questions for PGA’s executives or outright supported them.

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Wednesday

Kevin Cook

Is the PGA-LIV merger sports’ biggest betrayal?

From our US edition

What just happened to golf?  On Tuesday, PGA Tour commissioner Joseph William “Jay” Monahan IV announced that the PGA Tour will merge with LIV Golf, creating a new super tour along with Europe’s DP World Tour.  So much for the war between golf’s establishment and LIV, the upstart league backed by Saudi Arabia’s $620 billion sovereign wealth fund. Starting next year, Monahan will be the super tour’s CEO, answering to its chairman, Yasir al-Rumayyan, a close ally of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.  So much for moral posturing. Just last year, with LIV critics citing the Saudi regime’s ugly human-rights record, its links to 9/11 and Saudi thugs’ murdering and dismembering columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Monahan claimed the high ground.

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Tuesday

Cockburn

Flashback: Donald Trump predicted the PGA-LIV merger a year ago

From our US edition

The PGA Tour will officially merge with LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed golf league, in a shock bid to squash the antitrust lawsuits brewing between the two corporations. It’s a surprising move considering the PGA Tour executives and some of their high-profile players, such as Rory McIlroy, spent the past year morally shaming the pros who defected. But one man who was not shocked was former president Donald Trump, whose organization hosts LIV events at his courses. In July 2022, Trump wrote on Truth Social: All those golfers who remain "loyal" to the very disloyal PGA, in all its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you get nothing but a big "thank you" from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year.

donald trump pga-liv

Sunday

Max Jeffery

Why Saudi Arabia is trying to take over the world of golf

Golf came to Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. American expats, working in the nascent oil industry, brought their clubs with them and made courses in the dunes. They worked out that if you sprayed oil onto a patch of sand and then packed it down, you could make a vaguely puttable surface. ‘Occasionally, a herd of camels ambles over our greens,’ one engineer wrote for Aramco Weekly. ‘The terms “fairway” and “rough” employ a distinction that is theoretical only.’ Today, Saudi Arabia wants to take over the sport.