Lynch: Publicly flattering Donald Trump becomes the PGA Tour’s lesser evil

To the dismal list of indignities visited upon men’s professional golf — profound division, cutthroat rancor, naked greed, rampant entitlement — we can add brazen obsequiousness, evidenced by Thursday’s statement in which PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and player-directors Adam Scott and Tiger Woods had to fluff Mango Mussolini’s ego to help secure government approval for a deal to reunify the sport.

“We want to thank President Trump for his interest and long-time support of the game of golf. We asked the President to get involved for the good of the game, the good of the country, and for all the countries involved,” the statement read, gamely implying that the issue of where golfers play and how much they’re paid is tantamount to a geopolitical crisis. “We are grateful that his leadership has brought us closer to a final deal, paving the way for reunification of men’s professional golf.”

The release is a calculated exercise in forelock tugging, fulsomely praising a man who boasted that he could broker a deal between the Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in 15 minutes, but who’s been too busy taking a wrecking ball to the rule of law during his first two weeks in office to address golf’s problems. The call for Trump to get involved stopped short of suggesting how specifically he might do so, though hastening (or short-circuiting) the review process at the Department of Justice is the most obvious means. The PIF has not prostrated itself via press release, and may not have to since it bunged $2 billion into a start-up venture fund owned by Trump’s son-in-law. In the court of King Donny, those who can pay, pay. Those who can’t, flatter.

The Tour’s amusing toadyism detracts from the work of many within the organization — including signatories of the statement — in cooperating with antitrust regulators who are reviewing the terms of a proposed deal with the Saudis. The Tour has engaged in an intense dialogue with the Justice Department since signing the Framework Agreement in June ’23, and particularly so over the last six months. Justice has before it several versions of a deal, each tweaked slightly differently to address concerns that might be flagged, including options based on Saudi investment in PGA Tour Enterprises and at least one based on mere sponsorship.

The Tour has submitted all requested discovery materials, but multiple sources say Ponte Vedra has no insight on whether the Saudis have also done so. PIF contorted itself to avoid discovery of its U.S. investments (known and stealth) during the LIV-PGA Tour litigation, so complete compliance seems unlikely. Whether there has been sufficient compliance for the D.O.J. is unknown.

For months Tour executives have waited patiently for government regulators to complete the legal process and green light a move forward. That could have come at any point in the waning months of the Biden administration, but it didn’t. It also could have come any day in the opening months of the Trump administration, by wholly legitimate means and without the appearance of interference. The Tour may still get the decision it craves after a fair process that neither advantaged nor disadvantaged the parties involved, but this pucker-up press release will leave many people convinced that the process has been corrupted, even if it hasn’t.

For all the criticism directed at Monahan in the last few years — plenty of it warranted — he has proven himself a more savvy operator than given credit for. He’s managed the key relationships necessary to see a deal over the finish line — with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan; with the Strategic Sports Group investors; with the few Tour players who matter; and since the election, with Trump. He surely understands that complying with a legal process may not be enough now, that flattery can grease the skids and failure to flatter risks gumming the works. So he engaged in presidential puffery, platforming Trump to claim credit for a negotiation in which he played no meaningful role.

That could aide the PGA Tour in the near term, but does no favors for a sport already tarnished by sportswashing and avarice. Still, lousy optics won’t trouble golf executives who are impatient to get moving.

Even when the Justice Department raises up a stubby Cheeto thumb, a long road lies ahead. While the macro points of a deal have been largely agreed between the Tour and the PIF, negotiations continue about how golf’s landscape will look in the micro. Those decisions will have enormous ramifications: for the PGA Tour’s events, sponsors and players; for the DP World Tour, which will mold itself to a new global schedule; and for LIV, a failed folly that will remain on life support for a time, not least because Al-Rumayyan has been convinced by fee-taking courtiers that team golf is a source of untapped riches.

Somewhere along the way, perhaps soon, golf fans will face a new reality that lays waste to many of their prized norms. In that respect, the sport will never have more closely resembled America.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Lynch: Publicly flattering Donald Trump becomes PGA Tour’s lesser evil