Golf’s big merger shows everything has a price – including our morals

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Last week, at the PGA golf tournament he hosts every year, legend Jack Nicklaus was asked if the high-profile players who had bolted to the Saudi-backed LIV tour were missed.

“I don’t even consider those guys part of the game any more,” he huffed.

It wasn’t an altogether surprising response. The Golden Bear, as he is known, is arguably the most influential person in the game – its moral conscience. He never hid his disdain for what LIV had done to the sport. He was said to be meeting regularly with Tiger Woods to discuss strategies for surviving the challenge the renegade tour posed.

And then Tuesday happened.

The announcement that the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV were forming a joint entity left many in the golf world flabbergasted. How could the PGA Tour’s leadership jump into bed with people it had labelled immoral and beyond contempt? The Saudis were serial human-rights abusers who were known to take out their frustration on people they didn’t like by whipping out bone saws and dismembering them – journalist Jamal Khashoggi among them.

But as we know, in this cynical world in which we live, everything has a price. And the wealthy see things through only one prism: money.

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When Mr. Nicklaus was asked Tuesday what he thought of the surprise merger, most expected him to be as shockingly disappointed as so many others who had taken a stand against LIV.

“I agree that this is good for the game of golf,” he said, sending jaws plummeting to the floor around the world.

Petty criminals have demonstrated more resolve before turning.

If there was any thought that the guardians of the game would fight back against the idea of a corrupt Saudi regime taking control of the world of professional golf, Mr. Nicklaus quickly put that notion to rest. So did Rory McIlroy, who for months had effectively been the tour spokesman against LIV and everything it stood for. But in the face of the seeming inevitability of the merger, even he was resigned to its fate, saying the deal was “good for the game of professional golf.”

And it is likely going to be good for the pocketbooks of those PGA stars who turned down tens of millions of dollars from LIV to remain loyal to the tour. It’s now speculated that they will be made whole with Saudi money.

Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which manages more than US$600-billion worth of assets and had bankrolled the LIV tour, will now be chairman of the new joint venture with the PGA. Jay Monahan, the PGA executive who negotiated the deal with Mr. Al-Rumayyan, will be CEO. The CEO reports to the board, now overseen by the Saudi governor.

The Saudis are going to fund this new enterprise to the tune of multiple billions. This is important, as the PGA was apparently beginning to face a cash crunch, according to reporting in The Athletic, and it was using reserve funds to, in part, respond to the LIV threat by hiking purse sizes. Now it doesn’t have to worry about that because money is no object.

The deal means pending litigation between the two entities will be terminated. Neither side wanted to go to court. Was the deal motivated by a fear the PGA had about having to open its books and allowing the world to see just what was inside them? Of course, the Saudis had no interest in disclosing any of their financial affairs either. So there was a mutual impetus to end the war the Saudis had started.

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No one is quite sure yet what this means for the future of PGA tournaments. Will players now be able to wear shorts? Will there be rock music blaring at events while players are taking shots? Will the winner get to blast open a bottle of champagne like LIV victors do?

For a sport that has been dictated by tradition from its inception, it’s all a little hard to take. Just as the hypocrisy is. Among those most upset are the 9/11 Families United coalition that was so angered by what LIV and the Saudis had done in the first place. At the time, Mr. Monahan was steadfast in agreement, calling the LIV backers abhorrent, and vowing to cherish the memories of those who died at the hands of Saudi-funded terrorists.

As he famously said at the time: “Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”

Maybe the players do now. They’re helping launder the reputation of murderers.