By Larry Klayman
American Greatness
August 31, 2022
Several weeks ago, I turned on NBC’s Golf Channel to find PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan threatening professional golfers who would dare participate in the upstart LIV Golf Tour. Conceived by golfing icon Greg Norman and financed by the Saudi Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, LIV Golf made global headlines this summer when it hosted a major tournament at Donald Trump’s National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Monahan accused PGA Tour players who joined LIV Golf of accepting “blood money” and engaging in “sports washing,” among other vicious attacks on their morals and character. Monahan believes the new tour is an existential threat to the PGA Tour and affiliated tours, such as the DP World Tour.
Although I am an accomplished golfer, and I attend pro golf tournaments, I never paid attention to “golf politics” until just recently. But I know anticompetitive behavior when I see it. I was part of the trial team at the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice during the Reagan Administration that broke up the AT&T monopoly.