PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan trekked to Saudi Arabia last week in an attempt to finalize the terms of the “framework agreement” with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who oversees the kingdom’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, the Sports Business Journal reported.
The timing of the visit couldn’t have been more awkward for Monahan. During his trip, a report in The Athletic disclosed that Al-Rumayyan allegedly “carried out the instructions” of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in a scheme with “malicious intent” to discredit Saad Aljabri, the former chief of Saudi intelligence who is living in exile in Canada. The allegations, including a plan involving Al-Rumayyan for “wrongful kidnapping and detention,” were made in papers sent to Al-Rumayyan with the objective of adding him, the PIF and others as defendants in an existing $74 million lawsuit filed in Canada.
The PGA Tour did not comment about the meeting.
The meeting comes one week after two stunning announcements within European golf: DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley will resign, effective April 2, and deputy Guy Kinnings will be promoted into the top spot; and R&A chief Martin Slumbers, whose organization runs the Open Championship and governs the game worldwide except in the U.S. and Mexico, will leave by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, with the self-imposed deadline from the PGA Tour and PIF to work out a deal by the end of 2023 having expired, the two parties continue to work toward forming PGA Tour Enterprises, a proposed for-profit business that would operate outside of the tour’s existing tax-exempt tournament business. A handful of private-equity funds and American billionaires also reportedly are involved in the negotiations and likely to become partners, with or without the Saudis.
And outside of the hush-hush discussions in the Middle East, the invasive LIV Golf, which is funded by the Saudis’ PIF and has pilfered many of the game’s biggest stars, will begin its third season Feb. 2-4 in Mexico. READ MORE
Chase Johnson has received the Charlie Sifford memorial exemption to play in the Genesis Invitational, tournament host Tiger Woods announced. Johnson, 28, a Kent State alumnus, won three times last year on the Advocates Professional Golf Association Tour. He made two cuts in three starts last year on the PGA Tour. The $20 million Genesis Invitational, the third “signature event” of the season, will be played on February 15-18 at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, and wrap up the five-stop West Coast swing. The tournament benefits Woods’ TGR Foundation. READ MORE
Bernhard Langer, a two-time Masters champion, will make his final competitive appearance at Augusta National Golf Club this year, he said in an interview on Golf Channel.
Langer, 66, who won the green jacket in 1985 and 1993, will be making his 41st Masters start, dating to his debut in 1982, and acknowledged the difficulty of competing on a course that has been stretched to 7,545 yards.
“I’m going to be hitting 3-irons and 2-hybrids when the guys are hitting 9-irons into the green, and that’s tough to compete against,” he said from Hawaii, site of the season-opening tournament on the Champions Tour. “But it’s a challenge, and I usually don’t shy away from challenges.”
Langer, a German who lives in Boca Raton, Florida, owns only three victories on the PGA Tour but has won 40 more times on his native European Tour. Last year, he won the U.S. Senior Open for a record 46th victory on the Champions Tour. READ MORE
Angel Cabrera can compete in the Masters provided that the troubled Argentine can obtain a visa to enter the U.S., Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley said last week at the Latin America Amateur Championship. Cabrera, 54, the 2009 Masters champion, recently was paroled after serving 30 months in prison in Brazil and Argentina after incidents of domestic violence with two ex-girlfriends. With an eye on the April 11-14 Masters, Cabrera is seeking a U.S. visa and intends to compete next month in the Champions Tour’s Trophy Hassan II in Morocco, his manager said. Cabrera was listed on the Masters website under the heading of “past champions not playing.” READ MORE
Carl E. Rose, who owned Carl’s Golfland in suburban Detroit, Michigan, died January 11, according to a company statement. He was 65. No cause of death was listed.
Rose, the son of the company founder, the late Carl F. Rose, grew up in the family business. Since 2000, the younger Rose operated the retail, fitting and practice facilities in Bloomfield Hills and Plymouth and was hailed as a business innovator.
“He built a great team at Carl's Golfland, becoming one of the very few regional off-course retailers which successfully transitioned into a national online presence,” John Krzynowek, a partner with Golf Datatech, said in an email to Global Golf Post. “And Carl's was always being on the cutting edge in utilizing data/analytics during the custom-fitting process.”
Chris Whitten, executive director of the Golf Association of Michigan, hailed Rose as someone who “loved the game and made it a mission to support amateur golfers.” READ MORE
Carl Francis Paul, a pioneer clubmaker who founded the retailer Golfsmith, died January 12. He was 83. No cause of death was disclosed.
Paul, a New Jersey native who was raised in Texas, was introduced to golf early in his career as a civil engineer and soon searched for club-design innovations that might help improve his game. His tinkering led to a cottage business in the early 1970s that soon became a mail-order catalog for club components, the forerunner to the Golfsmith retail operation. When the Paul family sold the Austin, Texas-based Golfsmith in 2002, the company reportedly had 1,200 employees and 35 retail outlets across the U.S.
In 2016, Golfsmith was bought out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy by Dick’s Sporting Goods. Most Golfsmith stores were closed by the end of 2016, and the ones that remained open were converted to Dick’s Sporting Goods or its Golf Galaxy brand. READ MORE
TAP-INS
Judy Rankin, a World Golf Hall of Fame player who won 26 times on the LPGA Tour before spending nearly four decades in broadcasting, will receive the PGA of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism. Rankin, 78, worked most of her post-playing career as a commentator for ESPN and ABC before retiring as an analyst on NBC and Golf Channel in 2022. She will be honored by the PGA in April during Masters week in Augusta, Georgia, succeeding Global Golf Post’s Ron Green Jr., the PGA’s 2023 honoree. READ MORE
Three tournaments in Asia will offer exemptions to the Open Championship this summer at Royal Troon in Scotland as part of the Open Qualifying Series, the R&A announced. The IRS Prima Malaysian Open on February 15-18 in Kuala Lumpur and the Mizuno Open on May 23-26 in Setonaikai, Okayama, Japan, will offer three exemptions each, and the Kolon Korea Open on June 20-23 in Cheonan, South Korea, will offer two Open spots. READ MORE
The Epson Tour, the top feeder circuit for the LPGA, will feature 20 tournaments and a record $5 million in prize money this year plus a shift to a points-based ranking to determine the 10 players who will earn promotions for next year. The Epson Tour also has ended its Monday qualifying and instead will offer exemptions to the winner and runner-up at each of 10 tournaments on the developmental Women’s All Pro Tour, which is sponsored by former LPGA star Annika Sörenstam. The Epson Tour begins in early March with three consecutive stops in Florida. READ MORE
The U.S. national development team launched a pilot program in which seven states will attempt to expand the pipeline of elite junior golfers. California (Southern), Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Ohio and Tennessee will form the initial phase of what the USGA intends to include all 50 states for the national team, which was announced last February. READ MORE
Argentina’s Pilar Golf will host the 2025 Latin America Amateur Championship, organizers announced. Pilar, in Buenos Aires, was the site of the inaugural LAAC, won by Chile’s Matías Domínguez in 2015. The tournament dates will be January 16-19. READ MORE
Steve Stricker, who won six times in 16 starts on the Champions Tour in 2023 and compiled tour-record totals in earnings ($3,986,063) and scoring average (67.54) en route to the season-long Charles Schwab Cup, was named the tour’s player of the year. READ MORE
The World Champions Cup, a three-team tournament that debuted last year on the Champions Tour, will return to Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida, this year as part of a three-year contract extension, organizers announced. The three respective captains – Jim Furyk for the defending-champion U.S., the International team’s Ernie Els and Europe’s Darren Clarke – also will return for this year’s tournament, which will be played December 5-8. READ MORE
The USGA will adopt 18-hole qualifiers in advance of the third U.S. Adaptive Open, to be played July 8-10 at Sand Creek Station in Newton, Kansas. READ MORE
Compiled by Steve Harmon