It’s been a busy few days with news of the proposed PGA Tour/LIV merger and trying to both understand it and divine out if it does, in fact, mean the Saudis own professional golf. It raises a great many questions, such as: Why a tour that seemed to have the upper hand would merge with a tour that was beset with waning interest and seemed to be out of ideas? How can a majority investor in a company not have the controlling position? What proportion of this merger was driven by discovery and what was driven by economics? Did the PGA Tour really not have any other economic solutions? If the merger doesn’t go through because it is blocked by the Player Board or regulatory agencies, will the PGA Tour and the Saudis still find a way to be in business together and will LIV still die? What does Yasir Al-Rumayyan even know about golf and since the likely answer to that question is, not much, why is he ON THE BOARD? Given that the terms of the deal are so opaque it’s hard to know, with any certainty, the answers to these questions. I do know that the derision being directed at the deal makers, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, Jimmy Dunne and Ed Herlihy seems somewhat unfounded given the legal and economic realities they were likely dealing with. And to whatever degree they are guilty of selling out to the Saudis it pales in comparison to the soulless narcissistic greed of those players who defected to the Saudi league and in doing so gave LIV leverage and sent professional golf into a tailspin. It’s likely that the PGA tour, like Captain Sully landing that plane in the Hudson, made the best of a very bad situation. If it leads to the destruction of LIV, doesn’t disrupt the philanthropic foundation of the tour and neither diminishes the meritocratic appeal of the professional game nor dims the legacy of past and present players (excepting of course those who defected to LIV), as unconscionable as the source of the money is, given the irreparable harm the defectors caused the game this deal may have been the best possible scenario. Regardless, the PGA Tour is now in bed with the Saudis and with the exception of the long ago days when the tour had exclusionary clauses within its bylaws, it’s hard to imagine a sadder scenario for professional golf. – at Beverly Hills, CA