How Trump’s White House Return May End Pro Golf’s Civil War

When Brandel Chamblee stepped on the course for a round of golf with Donald Trump, his reputation preceded him. “[Trump] said straight away, ‘I know you and I differ on LIV, and we differ on the Saudi involvement of the game,’” Chamblee told VF.

“Differ” was probably putting it mildly.

As a commentator for the Golf Channel, Chamblee has established himself as perhaps the most outspoken critic of LIV Golf, the breakaway tour bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s nearly trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund.

To Chamblee (and many others), LIV’s source of funding made it more than just an upstart league challenging the PGA Tour’s supremacy in the golf world, but rather “a sportswashing operation for a murderous regime guilty of human rights atrocities,” as he described it in a 2022 column. He frequently invoked the Saudi government’s role in the brutal slaying of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, calling Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a “murderous despot.” And Chamblee ripped players such as Phil Mickelson for leaving the PGA Tour to secure eyewatering sums with LIV.

Trump, on the other hand, stands as one of LIV’s biggest boosters, with close ties to its Saudi backers. In April, Trump National Doral Miami will play host to a LIV tournament for the fourth consecutive year, while Trump-owned courses in Virginia and New Jersey have also served as venues for LIV events. When leaders for the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced a “framework agreement” in June 2023 to merge the rival tours—as well as the Europe-based DP World Tour—and form a single for-profit entity, Trump hailed it as a “big, beautiful, and glamorous deal for the wonderful world of golf.”

Chamblee, of course, took a decidedly more negative view of the deal, saying at the time that it was “one of the saddest days in the history of professional golf.” He was also doubtful that the merger would ever come to fruition, predicting that it would be blocked by either antitrust regulators at the Department of Justice or players on the PGA Tour’s policy board.

But near the end of 2023, Chamblee found himself on the course with Trump, who mounted a charm offensive with the leading LIV skeptic.

As they played Trump’s course in West Palm Beach, Florida, Chamblee listened as the then former president took a call from Sean Hannity, touted his poll numbers, and discussed a segment he had just seen on CNN. But throughout the round, Trump consistently returned the conversation to LIV, gradually softening Chamblee’s hardline stance. After they finished, Chamblee walked off the course convinced that an agreement between the tours was a matter of when, not if.

“He changed my view to the extent that I thought an alliance between the two was just inevitable,” Chamblee said.

That sense of inevitability has only grown since Trump’s election, which has improved the outlook for a deal that once drew considerable political scrutiny. After the PGA Tour and PIF announced their intention to merge—while dropping their antitrust lawsuits against one another in the process—Senate Democrats immediately launched investigations, and the Department of Justice said it would review the agreement for potential antitrust violations. With Trump back in office, opposition to the deal appears neutralized. His return to the presidency has also given momentum to what had been slow-moving negotiations between the PGA Tour and PIF.

The two sides were unable to strike a binding agreement by their self-imposed deadline of December 31, 2023, leaving the deal’s future in flux. But Trump has accelerated the talks, hosting a pair of meetings at the White House last month involving PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of PIF and chairman of LIV Golf. Tiger Woods, who remained on the PGA Tour after turning down a reported offer of $700–800 million to join LIV, attended the second meeting and said last month that he believes a deal between the two sides is imminent. Trump, for his part, bragged before the election that he could resolve the schism between the PGA Tour and LIV in the “better part of 15 minutes.” Last month, the president said there is a “very good chance” the two sides will get a deal over the line.

The tensions and uncertainty that once defined the negotiations have given way to a growing appetite for reconciliation.

Rory McIlroy, the second-ranked player in the world who had once expressed little more than disdain for LIV, said recently that his PGA Tour peers need to “get over” their aversion to the breakaway tour in the interest of reunification. McIlroy also expressed hope that Trump could be “influential” and expedite the deal.

“Why is the world of golf optimistic that a deal’s going to come together?” Chamblee said. “Well, because President Trump got elected.”

If Trump has given the negotiations an air of optimism, he’s also created fresh controversy.

Government ethics experts have said that Trump’s role in brokering the talks represents a glaring conflict of interest due to his family’s ownership of 15 golf courses in the United States and elsewhere. The PGA Tour has shunned Trump’s courses since the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)

Days after the MAGA mob scene, the PGA of America said that it would no longer hold the 2022 PGA Championship, one of golf’s four major tournaments, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. The R&A followed suit, saying that it would no longer hold the Open Championship, another major, at Trump Turnberry in Scotland. An alliance between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, brokered at the White House, would figure to put Trump’s courses back in the rotation. Monahan told reporters last month that he could “certainly see a day where we’re adding Trump venues to our schedule,” although the R&A said last week that it still had no intention of returning the Open to Turnberry.

Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said there is no clear public benefit for Trump to promote the merger—although there could be a personal one.

“Is there some expectation on his part of a private benefit to him?” Clark said. “Does he expect to get some kind of brokerage fee, and would that fee go to the United States or would it go to President Trump?”

The would-be merger raised regulatory concerns almost immediately after it was announced in 2023. At the time, Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to the Department of Justice calling for an antitrust probe.

Experts said then that DOJ regulators were likely to find problems with the deal—not least because Monahan himself admitted that the merger enabled the PGA Tour to “take the competitor off of the board.” The status of the DOJ’s probe into the merger isn’t immediately clear, although The New York Times reported that the clock expired on the review sometime in February. A spokesperson for the DOJ did not respond to an inquiry about the investigation.

In a statement last month following the first meeting at the White House, Monahan, Woods and PGA Tour policy board player-director Adam Scott said they “asked the President to get involved for the good of the game, the good of the country, and for all the countries involved.” But Trump’s involvement could also help clear the way for regulatory approval.

“President Trump’s participation in brokering the merger and encouraging the merger is a signal to federal regulators that they should fall in line and do what President Trump wants to happen rather than what the antitrust laws actually require to happen,” Clark said.

The Saudis’ role in the sport remains a source of discomfort for many, including Chamblee. While out on the course with Trump in 2023, Chamblee said that golf may come to rue its ties to a regime with a damning human rights record.

“What I said to President Trump was, ‘At some point, if this alliance happens, golf will have to apologize for its alliance with the Saudis,’” Chamblee said. “At some point, they will. There’s no way you could convince me to the contrary.”

Golf would hardly be the only sport required to issue such an apology. The Saudis have used the PIF, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds with assets valued at more than $900 billion, to amass a sizable portfolio of sporting ventures. In 2021, the fund acquired Newcastle United, a soccer club in England’s Premier League. It also owns four teams in the Saudi soccer league, which in recent years lured stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, and N’Golo Kante with lavish contracts. Last year, the PIF entered into a five-year sponsorship agreement with the Association of Tennis Professionals that made it the official “naming partner” of the ATP’s rankings, while also giving the fund branding rights at several events.

Growing the Saudi footprint in professional sports was one of the primary objectives of “Vision 2030,” a program unveiled nearly a decade ago by the crown prince, which is aimed at diversifying the country’s oil-rich economy. Since then, Saudi Arabia has played host to a number of high-profile events in Formula One, tennis, boxing, and professional wrestling. Last year, the global soccer governing body FIFA awarded the country the right to host the 2034 World Cup.

After golfing with Trump, Chamblee said he now believes the PIF’s outlay is as much about economics as it is about reputation-laundering. But more than anything, Trump convinced him of the Saudis’ staying power.

“He said, ‘They are not going anywhere,’” Chamblee recalled. “They are going to be around. They are in this for the duration.”

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