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The news that LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed golf league, would merge with the PGA caught the entire sports world off-guard, to put it mildly. After a year of LIV poaching PGA golfers with staggering salaries and lawsuits followed by countersuits, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan dropped the staggering announcement Tuesday afternoon. USA Today National Sports Columnist Christine Brennan appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to dissect the overwhelming shock and anger at the move.
“This is an absolute outrage; this is blood money,” Brennan told Berman and Riedel, “and the PGA Tour is now a part of it… [The Saudis] are now running men’s golf around the world. I can’t even believe I said that sentence. It is so outrageous, so wrong, and let’s hope that maybe some senators who are outraged or others might look into this, because it is just truly an appalling turn of events.”
The two groups of people who should be most appalled at Monahan, as Brennan explains, are the golfers who stood behind the PGA and the families of 9/11 victims. “He allowed Rory McElroy, who’s a great guy, to go out there and basically carry the PGA Tour on his back for the last year and few months, talking about how awful LIV is, and basking in that. Monahan himself went on with Jim Nantz at one point on CBS and talked about 9/11, and those he knew who died on 9/11, and talking about how awful the Saudis were… that same man did this yesterday… the honor, the dignity of golf, all torn to shreds by one man, Jay Monahan.”
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