The Justice Department has warned the PGA Tour that it plans to investigate its merger with the Saudi-backed tour LIV Golf over antitrust concerns, sources with knowledge of the matter told the Wall Street Journal.
A DOJ probe could jeopardize and threaten to significantly delay the partnership, which PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan called “transformational” earlier this month.
When the agreement was announced, the parties were set to combine their commercial businesses and rights into a new entity. LIV Golf Investments, the firm spearheading the LIV tour, is backed by the Saudi government’s sovereign wealth fund. Over the last year, LIV and the PGA have been entangled in multiple antitrust lawsuits. The merger deal ostensibly was supposed to put to rest the ongoing expensive litigation between the groups.
Monahan, who helped broker the merger and was supposed to head the new enterprise, recently took a leave of absence for medical reasons, the PGA Tour announced. The deal is still on, a Tour official told the Journal.
Some lawyers have wondered whether the deal passes the antitrust smell test, the publication said, especially given Monahan’s recent comments to reporters that the objective would be “to take the competitor off of the board, to have them exist as a partner, not an owner.”
Golfers and fans who favored the PGA slammed the LIV as a so-called “sports-washing” vehicle for the authoritarian Saudi regime to distract from its extensive record of human-rights abuses.
In June 2022, six-time golf champion Phil Mickelson joined LIV despite calling out the tour’s connection to the Saudi government in an interview he claimed was off the record. Fellow major-winner Dustin Johnson also signed a five-year deal with LIV for $100 million. Mickelson was called hypocritical, given comments he made to Alan Shipnuck, who wrote an unauthorized biography on the golfer, in which he criticized the Saudi league for its affiliation with the regime. Speaking to Shipnuck, Mickelson called the Saudis “scary motherf—ers to get involved with.”
“We know they killed [Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates,” Mickelson allegedly told Shipnuck.