Hall of Famer and eight-time Major Championship winner Tom Watson wrote a letter to the PGA Tour on Monday asking for answers regarding the league’s new contract with LIV Golf and Saudi Arabia.
Watson, according to The Associated Press, sent a letter to Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and the Tour’s board on Monday asking if the new partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – something Monahan has announced earlier this month before receiving widespread backlash – was the only way to resolve the Tour’s financial difficulties. The questions he asked, he said, were “compounded by the hypocrisy of ignoring the moral question.”
“My loyalty to golf and to this country lives in the same place and has carried equal and significant weight with me throughout my life,” Watson wrote. “Please educate me and others in a way that allows loyalty to both, and in a way that makes it easy to look the 9/11 families in the eye and ourselves in the mirror. .”
Watson specifically mentioned the hypocrisy regarding Monahan’s relationship with groups like 9/11 Families United, which criticized the commissioner shortly after the merger was announced. Last year, when defending the Tour against LIV Golf, Monahan cited the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a reason to stick with the Tour.
Many details of the new partnership between the Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf are not yet known. Monahan called it a “framework agreement” when he first announced it ahead of the RBC Canadian Open, and the Tour and LIV Golf have since filed motions to dismiss their one-on-one litigation. other in court. It is unclear if LIV Golf will continue to exist after this season. Monahan is expected to be the new company’s CEO and PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan will be its chairman, although the Tour will retain a majority stake in the new entity despite the PIF’s investments.
Monahan stepped away from his day-to-day role with the Tour to recover from a medical situation.
A Players Advisory Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday ahead of the Travelers Championship this week in Connecticut, though Monahan will not attend.
The new merger has prompted multiple inquiries in recent days. A US Senate committee is reviewing the deal and two other senators have asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the antitrust issues. The Justice Department then informed the Tour that it was also reviewing the merger.
Watson, 73, has won the PGA Tour 39 times and won eight major championships. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1988. Watson’s letter came just a day after Wyndham Clark won the US Open in Los Angeles, which marked his first major championship. Clark fended off Rory McIlroy, who was once again arrested just before a major title shot, with one blow.