As a Senate subcommittee tries to sort out the impact and influence Saudi investors might have on the Pga Tour, unsealed court documents show that Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, was personally involved in the formation of Liv Golf and the launching of the rival circuit.
While Al-Rumayyan’s interest in Golf and his role with the PIF, which owns LIV Golf and is negotiating an alliance with the PGA Tour, has never been in question, lawyers had previously downplayed his day-to-day involvement in LIV Golf.
Emails unsealed Thursday night show that officials kept Al-Rumayyan apprised of LIV business discussions and sought his approval before moving forward with key initiatives. One July 2022 email from Atul Khosla, a former LIV executive, to his colleagues seemed to refer to the turbulence the start-up league faced in its inaugural season. “Need to show [Al-Rumayyan] how we have looked to change the narrative — I am trying to think how best we can provide update/screen shot of key articles, what we have in the works, chatter on social? Open to ideas but i need to get him comfortable that we are moving things in the right direction.”
Other emails and documents noted that Al-Rumayyan was briefed and approved operational activities, such as LIV’s launch date and its partnership with the Asian Tour. One document outlining LIV operations noted a weekly meeting with Al-Rumayyan and LIV executives, including Greg Norman, the league’s chief executive; plus a monthly meeting with the PIF board; and an annual “workshop” for strategic planning involving Al-Rumayyan and LIV leadership.
The documents were voluntarily unsealed by LIV lawyers late Thursday night, months after a request by the New York Times, which is urging the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to make more than 60 records public even though the litigation between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf has ended. LIV lawyers say the vast majority of the records should remain sealed, but in “the interest of simplifying this dispute” with the Times, the organization unsealed 13 records. A U.S. district judge will rule whether more documents should be made public.
While the unsealed documents will have no bearing on the now-settled litigation between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, they could be of interest to lawmakers who are investigating the proposed alliance between the tour and LIV’s Saudi benefactors. The Saudi PIF and Al-Rumayyan have rebuffed efforts from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to testify at a proposed Capitol Hill hearing this month. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the subcommittee chair, has made a broad request for documents from the PIF and last month reiterated his demand that Al-Rumayyan appear before the subcommittee, threatening to “consider other legal methods to compel the PIF’s compliance” if the PIF governor refuses. The subcommittee has a hearing scheduled for Sept. 13, but no witnesses are yet listed.
Officials with the PGA Tour and LIV Golf did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the newly unsealed documents.
If the PGA Tour’s alliance with the Saudi PIF is finalized, Al-Rumayyan stands to become among the most influential figures in professional golf, serving as chair of the tour’s new for-profit entity and taking a seat on the tour’s policy board. PGA Tour executives have maintained that the tour would still have final say on operational and business decisions and insist the tour isn’t ceding control of the sport to a foreign entity.
Despite owning 93 percent of LIV, the PIF had sought to distance itself from LIV Golf in some court filings, saying at one point that “PIF invested in an entity based in Jersey (a UK dependency), which owns another entity based in Jersey, which, in turn, owns LIV; PIF does not own shares in LIV.” It contended in filings that the fund “provides high-level oversight” and “does not manage or control LIV’s day-to-day operations.”
The PGA Tour, meanwhile, repeatedly asserted that the PIF played a vital, hands-on role with LIV operations, saying in filings that the fund “had effective control over LIV,” and that Al-Rumayyan exercised “near absolute authority over LIV.”
A U.S. magistrate judge seemed to favor the PGA Tour’s interpretation, saying in one ruling: “It is plain that PIF is not a mere investor in LIV.”
The newly released records show that Al-Rumayyan was involved in discussions about the formation of LIV and was kept abreast of some key developments. He met with Norman and Jed Moore, an executive with Performance54, the golf management firm that helps run LIV, in New York a month before LIV’s existence became public.
Another document released revealed notes for Norman ahead of an apparent meeting with a potential sponsor, laying out the early plans for what was then called “Project Wedge” or “the League,” which noted LIV’s business model was compiled by “over 200 industry experts for a 6-month period,” including the McKinsey and Teneo consulting firms. That document noted that LIV made early overtures to partner with the PGA Tour and sought to “integrate a new series as a special event platform, within the existing golf ecosystem.”
The tour spurned those advances, and LIV Golf and the PGA Tour began battling in court in August of 2022. But as part of the controversial partnership struck in June, the two sides agreed to end their dueling litigation.
On June 16 — four days before the case was formally dismissed — the Times filed a request for the court to unseal all records related to the case, saying “there is a substantial and legitimate public interest in these proceedings and their outcome, in understanding the important legal issues raised by the parties — which affect the public — and in understanding the litigation conduct of the parties.” The Times eventually narrowed its request.
Clout Public Affairs, a Washington-based firm that worked for the PGA Tour but wasn’t party to the litigation, was among those who took issue with the Times’s request. Clout also worked for a group of families of 9/11 victims, which was protesting against LIV Golf and its Saudi connections. In its filing to the court, the firm said that “Clout employees have a reasonable fear of retaliation from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the funder of LIV … given its track record on human rights violations and dissident retaliation. This information is sensitive and likely to provoke the Kingdom.”
No Clout records were among the batch made public this week.
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