Greg Norman, chief executive of the LIV Professional Golf Tour, said in an interview with Fox News that aired Monday night that he had no explanation for the criticism leveled against the tour — the tour itself widely seen as a “sportswashing” of Saudi Arabia’s rights abuses. Human and Links to 9/11.
Speaking from former President Donald Trump’s golf club of Bedminster, New Jersey, which hosted the tour’s second U.S. event over the weekend, Tucker Carlson asked Norman why the tour was “so offensive to some American golf fans.”
“Why are they crazy?” asked Carlson, the former Australian golfer.
“I don’t know. I really don’t care, quite frankly,” Norman said. “I just love golf a lot and just want to develop golf. We at LIV see this opportunity not just for men but for women. We at LIV see it for the NCAA and the younger generations. We at LIV see it as a pathway of opportunities for these kids to experience a new world out there. Leaf is the future of golf.”
Norman said LIV paid huge sums to recruit PGA players, even reaching out to Tiger Woods with an offer of between $700 million and $800 million. LIV is largely funded by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – the man the CIA held responsible for the 2018 assassination. Washington Post Journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Carlson also asked about Trump’s participation in the tour.
Norman said Trump, who has questioned the CIA’s findings, “sees the commercial opportunity of what golf can offer him.” “Trump Bedminster is no different, is it? Membership here is full. It’s a business entity for him where he can make some revenue out of it.”
Once Trump left office, the Public Investment Fund invested $2 billion in Affinity, a private equity firm led by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. (This move is being investigated by the House Oversight and Reform Committee.) Public Investment Fund also gave $1 billion to Liberty Strategic Capital, a fund set up by former Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
When asked at the training session about his decision to host the tournament against the wishes of the families of the 9/11 victims, he said, “Unfortunately, no one has reached the bottom of 9/11” – commenting on that does not correspond to what he said in the past.
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