PGA Tour official vows to meet with 9/11 families during Senate hearing on partnership with Saudis

PGA Tour board member Jimmy Dunne vowed during a Senate hearing with the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Tuesday that the circuit’s leadership would meet with 9/11 victims’ families in response to the tour’s partnership with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), LIV Golf’s financial backers. 

Dunne testified before the committee alongside Ron Price, the PGA Tour’s chief operating officer, fielding several questions about last month’s announcement of a landmark partnership between the rival golf entities. 

Dunne and Price maintained that the announcement was a framework agreement and not a merger, noting that the only finalized detail was the end of all pending litigation between the Tour, LIV Golf and the DP World Tour. 

“We pursued a peace that would not only end the divisive litigation battles but would also maintain the PGA Tour structure, mission and long-standing support for charity,” Price said. “While negotiations toward a definitive agreement are currently underway, the framework agreement contains important safeguards that ensures the tour will operate fundamentally as it does today.

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“The tour will control its operations. The tour will control the board of the new PGA Tour subsidiary, and the tour will be the governing body for competitive golf in connection with any combined golf operations.” 

But the most significant pressure the PGA Tour faced during Tuesday’s hearing surrounded PIF’s investment in the new “collectively owned, for-profit entity” considering its poor human rights record and accusations of “sportswashing.” 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., questioned Dunne on what he would say to the families of the 9/11 victims, some of whom were in attendance Tuesday. 

“I will say now what I said on Sept. 12 of 2001, what I said to my children growing up: Anyone remotely involved, anyone tangentially involved, anyone who profited, anyone who is involved, we should pursue them with extreme prejudice to the full extent, to the complete capacity.

“I honestly believe that our government, with both President Bush, President Obama, our military and the brilliant, brilliant SEALs did their job. And anyone that is involved with that has answered justice.”

Dunne committed to meeting with the families of 9/11 victims during his testimony, adding he would not discriminate against anyone because of a “common religion or skin color.”

Terry Strada, the 9/11 Families United chair whose husband was killed in the attacks, submitted a statement to the committee Tuesday morning, slamming the tour for what she viewed as “effectively turning over the game of golf to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

“We know why the PGA Tour is doing it. It’s for the money,” Strada said. “But that isn’t why the Saudis are doing it. They’re doing it as a public relations strategy to distract from their authoritarian past and present, and especially their unacknowledged culpability for supporting al Qaeda and the hijackers of Sept. 11.

“We are here to watch representatives from the PGA Tour, who have signed on to help the kingdom try once again to fix its reputation, this time through sportswashing. Those same PGA representatives expect those of us who experienced our losses to ‘move on’ without so much as an acknowledgment of wrongdoing. They will stick to their Saudi talking points just like the LIV golfers did, claiming simply that golf is ‘a force for good.’”

Part of the framework of the partnership includes an investment from PIF. Price revealed Tuesday that the investment will be a “significant amount north of $1 billion.”