BEDMINSTER, New Jersey — Weeks before former President Donald Trump nabbed the GOP nod in 2016, he was dealt a serious blow in the golfing world when the PGA Tour whisked away its coveted golf tournament from his Miami resort.
Now, seven years later, Trump has the opportunity to settle the score against the prestigious golf behemoth. LIV Golf, an upstart rival backed by exorbitant cash from Saudi Arabia, burst on the scene, doling out heaps of cash to golf legends in hopes of peeling them away from the PGA Tour. Trump appears too eager to go along despite controversy.
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“All of those golfers that remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA, in all of 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,” he wrote in a post to his social media platform, Truth Social.
Golf has long been a passion of the former president. He has been keen on bringing big league golf events to his lavish golf venues to burnish the brand of his empire and reap a financial windfall. But he has endured setbacks in that quest.
In 2016, the PGA Tour announced plans to pull its World Golf Championship from the Trump National Doral Miami, which had served as a venue for the contest for nearly 55 years, because it had struggled to find a sponsor. Trump decried the move as a “sad day for Miami” and harped on the decision to move it to Mexico City — which he compared to corporate outsourcing.
At that point, the PGA Tour was one of the foremost professional golf entities in the country, with an extensive slew of sponsors and key network partnerships. That has started to change, with LIV hosting tournaments for the first time this year and tapping into its massive financial war chest to dole out lucrative contracts to big-name golfers such as Rory McIlory, Cameron Smith, and Scottie Scheffler in a bid to counter the PGA’s domination.
“The PGA Tour, an American institution, can’t compete with a foreign monarchy that is spending billions of dollars in an attempt to buy the game of golf,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan conceded last month, the Mirror UK reported.
The former president’s dust-up with the PGA Tour in 2016 was not the only time his golf empire hit a snag. Following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the PGA Championship was moved from his Bedminster resort to Oklahoma. The championship is run by PGA of America, which is separate from the PGA Tour.
This year, Trump is hosting two of LIV’s eight events for the year, including at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster from July 29-31 and at the Trump National Doral Miami in October.
The former president has faced criticism from families of 9/11 victims for LIV’s Saudi cash flow. Family members have condemned Saudi Arabia for its ties to the 9/11 attacks, citing FBI reports examining connections between the oil-rich nation and the attack, castigating LIV participants for accepting “blood money.” Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi.
Further concerns have been raised by U.S. intelligence tying Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Riyadh has adamantly denied culpability for 9/11 and has distanced the crown prince from Khashoggi’s death.
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Trump has brushed aside uproar over LIV’s Saudi connections, arguing that “nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11.”
Hosts for the 2023 LIV league have not yet been determined, but Trump’s willingness to host in 2022 could augur well for his prospects of hosting again. LIV plans to expand its slate of events next year to 14, up from the eight scheduled for 2022.
