Former PGA golfer Brandel Chamblee, now an analyst, has been an outspoken critic of LIV Golf.
Chamblee once said the Saudi-backed league was “funded by a murderous regime” and said the “greedy” players joining the tour were “helping a dictorial murderer launder his reputation.”
In June 2023, the two pro golf tours shocked the world when it was announced they would be working together for the betterment of the game.
Discussions are still underway, but PGA Commissioner Jayu Monahan recently said the tour “asked” President Donald Trump “to get involved for the good of the game, the good of the country and for all the countries involved.”
LIV has played at several Trump-owned courses.
“We are grateful that his leadership has brought us closer to a final deal, paving the way for reunification of men’s professional golf,” Monahan said in a statement this week.
Chamblee said he had a chance to play golf with Trump last year, and the two discussed LIV and how it could be beneficial to the game of golf.
“He was so magnanimous about our differences. At one point, he said, ‘Look, I know you and I differ on this opinion, but hear me out.’ He said, ‘[LIV Golf chairman] Yasir [Al-Rumayyan] loves golf more than you do and more than I do.’ Now, that’s hard to believe because President Trump plays a lot of golf, and I’m crazy about it. But he was serious,” Chamblee said at the Waste Management Open Friday.
“They have $32 trillion worth of oil underneath that sand, and they really have to diversify their economy. He said they are all in on this, and they’re not going anywhere. As the round progressed, he would want to talk almost every hole about LIV, about the Saudi involvement and how excited he was for it.”
Chamblee said he has since grown to “understand why we acquiesce and need Saudi Arabia as a partner in the Middle East,” adding that his own “issues were about the human rights concerns and about how golf was going to have to at some point apologize for some issue.”
Chamblee added he didn’t totally agree with Trump, but the president made convincing arguments to “[make] me think of Yasir as a partner in the game of golf.”
Golf star Rory McIlroy said in November he believed Trump becoming president for the second time could help “clear the way” for a deal between the PGA and LIV.
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