Brandel Chamblee shared his thoughts on the merger between the PGA Tour and DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Chamblee has been one of the most vocal critics against LIV Golf, which the PIF funds, but also the human rights record of Saudi Arabia.
“Completely shocked (when) I first heard about it, I was completely shocked,” Golf Channel analyst Chamblee said in a video you can watch below. “I can’t imagine that to many people outside of maybe the two or three or four or five people that were in the room, that brought this merger to fruition, would have known anything about it.
“After this shocked ebbed away, I was hugely disappointed. I think this is one of the saddest days in the history of professional golf. I do believe that the governing bodies, the professional entities, have sacrificed their principles for profit. And then of course, I tried to imagine what circumstances would have led to such a capitulation; I think there are three things likely that would have led to something like this: (1) intractable legal issues going on indefinitely into the future [an ani-trust lawsuit LIV Golf brought against the PGA Tour], no doubt with legal vulnerability on both sides of this issue. And the only people that stood a profit from that were the lawyers involved. And then of course (2), I think, the entanglement of various business entities and sponsors that the PGA Tour has that have Saudi money, and PIF money, in them. And I think it became increasingly difficult for the PGA Tour to disentangle themselves from that scrutiny and from that criticism. And then (3) of course, the fact that there would be billions of dollars on the table for potentially the growth of the game globally. As I say in the best case scenario, it could have been any one of those it could have been a combination of all three.”
