The news is not directly related to golf, but the implications are obvious: Donald Trump, the right-wing populist in the White House, is boosting the American economy with the help of Saudi Arabia, to whose tune he danced during his first term as US president. Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman wants the PIF sovereign wealth fund to invest an additional 600 billion dollars in the USA over the next four years and to buy US goods and weapons. The strongman of the regime in Riyadh made this promise to the 45th and now 47th President of the United States last week in a telephone call after his inauguration. Bin Salman is thus courting Trump’s favour and positioning the monarchy as a counterweight to the expected economic and trade conflicts with China, Europe and possibly also Russia.
Friendly relationship between Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia
Bin Salman and Trump have maintained a friendly relationship since Trump’s first term in office. Just how close the business relationship is was demonstrated shortly after the re-election when Bin Salman’s business vizier Yasir Al-Rumayyan was spotted in Trump’s neighbourhood. The PIF led by Al-Rumayyan has direct and indirect economic ties with the US president’s holding company, which benefits from Saudi construction projects and LIV Golf League events at Trump golf courses, six in total since 2022.
The consequences of the growing Saudi influence in the USA are also likely to spill over into the golf industry. The approval of the Saudi minority stake in PGA Tour Enterprises, for example – including Trump’s muzzle for the US Department of Justice and a presidential moratorium on all bureaucratic hurdles – which the PGA Tour and PIF have been working on since June 2023. The Donald recently reiterated in a podcast that it would take him less than 15 minutes to finalise the deal between the PIF and PGA Tour: ‘We have bigger problems than that, but I think we should have one tour. And the best players in the world should compete against each other on this tour.’ He speaks from the heart of golf fans. Or Trump sympathisers like Bryson DeChambeau.
Tempi passati: Definitely gone are the days when Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, in his capacity as Chairman of the Senate Investigative Committee, castigated ‘the ability of a brutal, repressive regime to buy influence over a cherished American institution’. Now the Republicans are in charge and a different wind is blowing in the USA in general, a quasi-dictatorial wind fuelled by the tech oligarchs. The PGA Tour and the PGA of America are also likely to hang their flags in the same wind sooner or later, having withdrawn tournaments and majors from the Trump Organisation eight years ago. Even more so if a separate world tour is actually created, organised by PGA Tour Enterprises – and thanks to the protected PIF participation, certainly also with guest appearances on Trump courses. Turnberry in Scotland, for example, which has been put on ice by the R&A for the Open-Rota and therefore lies fallow in terms of major tournaments, springs to mind.
By the way, Trump played golf with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan last November shortly after his re-election. And the following day, he and ‘special advisor’ Elon Musk met PIF boss Al-Rumayyan, with whom Musk also has business ties, at a martial arts event in New York. And so the circle closes.
Even Rory McIlroy assumes that a US President Donald Trump would be more conducive to reunification: ‘He has good relations with Saudi Arabia. He loves golf and has a good relationship with golf. He’s a lover of golf. So, who knows.’ It will be an exciting four years. Politically. Economically. Socially. And also for men’s professional golf.