Lynch on LIV merger: “the stench of every man for himself”
Eamon Lynch’s take on the rift in professional golf over the past few years has been a must-read. It’s not just a lesson in golf governance but a lesson in politics.
It’s obvious he doesn’t think too fondly of the whole debacle, primarily because of the dubious human rights record at the source of the money. In Lynch’s latest piece at Golfweek on the merger talks between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns LIV Golf he highlights the growing concerns about transparency, control, and the potential consequences for professional golf’s integrity.
Lynch questions whether the PGA Tour has compromised its values for financial gain and suggests that the golfers themselves may have altered the landscape of professional golf, driven by the allure of substantial financial rewards.
But none have been more opportunistic than PGA Tour golfers. They’ve secured previously unimaginable pay for working in an underperforming product, grabbed control in a governance shakeup amid the aftershocks of the Framework Agreement, and are playing power games by creating their own marketing events, safe in the knowledge that the Tour lacks the leverage over members that it enjoyed during the imperial commissariat of Tim Finchem.
The game is ripe with the stench of every man for himself.
And if you want some clue as to why these talks are taking so long, part of the answer lies with Saudi Arabia’s PIF’s reluctance to be completely transparent about where their US investments lie.
A Justice Department review will almost certainly involve requests for discovery materials similar to those the Saudis refused to submit during antitrust litigation, and which they’ve declined to hand over to a U.S. Senate committee for a year. Sources close to the negotiations say there’s clear intent by the PIF to avoid establishing a transparency precedent that might shine a light on its other investments in the U.S., known and stealth. So what level of compliance will prove sufficient for the U.S. government?
If you want to read the whole thing, and I suggest you do – read it here.