Opinion: Trump’s ego and greed help divide a sport

Long his passion, the game has been marred by controversy over a new tour (comparable to a league) that is backed by a Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund. Players must choose between tradition and big money on offer in this new tour, loaded with association with Saudi Arabia’s appalling human rights record. Typically, Trump has inserted himself into the middle of this dispute. Players should “take the money” offered by the new LIV Golf Tour, he says, rather than remain loyal to the venerable PGA Tour, predicting an inevitable merger. “If you don’t take the money now,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account, “you won’t get anything after the merger goes through, telling only how smart the original signatories were.” To be clear, only Trump is talking about the possible merger of the organizations. Instead, according to CNBC, the PGA is hiring lobbyists to fight LIV because of what its commissioner calls “an irrational threat, unconcerned about return on investment or true growth of the game.” The US tour is also investing in the Allied European Tour and banning LIV players from their events. Of course, this blow will be softened by the big prize payouts that LIV will offer this year, according to Forbes.

At the center of it all is the chairman of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, who must be credited for LIV’s ambitious effort to challenge the golf establishment.

Trump’s endorsement of LIV by urging gamers to go after the money is entirely consistent for a man who once said in “The Art of Dealing,” “You can’t be too greedy.” But money isn’t the only benefit LIV golfers get; on the new tour they will have to play less golf. The LIV events will be three-day, 54-hole events. (The name LIV is the Roman numeral version of 54.) PGA tournaments are four-day events that require 72 holes of play. More money for less work: what is there to lose? Apparently, Trump thought he too had nothing to lose and everything to gain when he accepted LIV’s request to host an event in its inaugural season. This is reminiscent of Trump’s involvement in the 1980s with a new football league called the USFL. Trump, then the owner of the New Jersey Generals, led an effort to file an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL. Although the USFL won the case, the NFL was only forced to pay a token dollar, and in the end, the long court battle sank the fledgling football league. Trump may be reliving that experience, and perhaps relitigating his failure vicariously with golf. There are also other advantages for Trump. There is the fee Trump will receive for leasing his Bedminster, New Jersey field, along with valuable free publicity as the press covers both the event and the additional controversy of a former US president working with an organization controlled by Trump. a state with a terrible record. (A State Department report notes that Saudi Arabia’s “significant human rights problems include: unlawful killings, executions for nonviolent crimes, enforced disappearances.”) The murder and dismemberment of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 focused global attention on the kingdom’s record. Trump’s connection to Saudi Arabia was surely on the minds of members of 9/11 Justice, an advocacy group that represents the families of those killed in the 9/11 terror attacks. Fifteen of the 19 attackers, who killed almost 3,000 people that day, were Saudi citizens. They were affiliated with Al Qaeda, which wealthy Saudis allegedly help finance, according to an analysis by BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera. However, Trump is sticking with the Saudis. (The Saudi government denies any involvement in 9/11.)

Trump seems immune to efforts by others to shame him, so the fact that he plans to host the tournament comes as no surprise. He adds the longstanding evidence that he considers the kingdom good trading partners and vital allies and his choice to pick the Saudis over the US tour and the objections of the 9/11 families seems inevitable.

In the 1990s, when Trump was facing financial peril, the Saudis bought him a large yacht and a hotel, according to Mademoiselleosaki, and the Riyadh government also paid $4.5 million for Trump’s apartment. The Post reported that while campaigning for president in 2015, he said of the Saudis: “They buy me apartments. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I not supposed to like them? I like them a lot.” As president, Trump made Saudi Arabia the first stop on his initial trip abroad. When Khashoggi was assassinated at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Trump’s response to the scandal was muted, to say the least. In fact, after the CIA reported that MBS ordered the assassination, Trump issued an official statement saying, “Maybe he did it and maybe he didn’t!” (The Saudi Foreign Ministry dismissed a similar assessment of a US intelligence report on MBS in 2021.) Reaffirming his interest in the money, he also highlighted a pending $20 billion to $30 billion US arms sale to Saudi Arabia. It was just part of an overall package that Trump claimed accounted for $110 billion in sales over the course of 10 years, brokered by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, early in the Trump administration. (In fact, less than $4 billion in arms deals had been concluded when Trump made this claim, NPR reported, citing a Brookings Institution official.) After Trump left office, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, run by MBS, poured $2 billion into Kushner’s stock fund, according to The New York Times. If the financial elements of Trump’s decision are a bit hard to follow, the golf aspects are pretty clear. Trump has long sought the prestige that comes with having professional tournaments on his courses. To date, the courses have hosted seven tournaments for major golf organizations. A few years ago, Trump’s Bedminister club was scheduled to host his first major tournament, a category that includes the Masters, US Open, British Open and PGA Championship. However, in the wake of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters, the PGA moved the 2022 Championship from Bedminster to a course in Oklahoma called Southern Hills Country Club. During the 2016 campaign, the PGA Tour moved a tournament from Trump’s Doral course in Florida to Mexico City. Although the tour had once raised concerns about Trump’s provocative statements about Muslims, the lack of a sponsor to help foot the bill was the reason given when the decision was made, according to Mademoiselleosaki. Trump’s support for LIV may be an act of revenge directed at the American golf establishment. But by choosing LIV, he won’t get the valuable attention that PGA Tour events get. As of now, LIV has no broadcast contracts, so it will not appear on television. The tournaments can be viewed online, but as The New Yorker recently noted, the audience there has been “woefully small.” How will Trump recount his experience with LIV? From a financial standpoint, he won’t get all the publicity he might expect from another tour. However, by urging players to defect and side with LIV, he put a finger in the eye of the powers that be who rejected him. Among the notable names that have been recruited for LIV are Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson. Trump’s support for LIV will likely please MBS, who is Kushner’s investor and who played a key role in LIV’s development. Best of all, for a man who owns golf courses, plays frequently and loves to talk about the game, the LIV event offers Trump the opportunity to play a pro in a pro-am match. Can you imagine letting it go?

Source: www.cnn.com