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- [00:01]
Pablo Torre
Welcome to Pablo Torre finds Out I am Pablo Toure and today we're gonna find out what this sound is.
- [00:07]
Alan Shipnuck
You're right. You know, there's been a lot of tension in our sport over the last couple of years, but what we're talking about today is coming together to unify.
- [00:16]
Pablo Torre
The game of golf right after this ad. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime.
- [00:24]
Alan Shipnuck
From streaming to shopping, prime helps you get more out of your passions. So whether you're a fan of true crime or prefer a nail biting novel from time to time, with services like Prime Video, Amazon music, and fast free delivery, prime makes it easy to get more out of whatever you're into or getting into. Visit Amazon.comprime to learn more.
- [00:49]
Pablo Torre
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Knowing you could be saving money for the things you really want is a great feeling. Talk to a State Farm agent today.
- [00:57]
Alan Shipnuck
To learn how you can choose to.
- [00:59]
Pablo Torre
Bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts, and savings and.
- [01:11]
Alan Shipnuck
Eligibility vary by state.
- [01:20]
Pablo Torre
It's good to see you, man.
- [01:22]
Alan Shipnuck
It's been a long time.
- [01:23]
Pablo Torre
It's been a long time. I think of you often, though, which.
- [01:26]
Alan Shipnuck
Is why I don't think that's true.
- [01:28]
Pablo Torre
But no, look, look, look. When Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia and golf and insane quotes come together, I shine the Alan Ship Nuck bat signal into the sky. Because you've written it's multiple books that have touched on the live golf saga. At this point, you are a character in ways that I want to get into in here because it's endlessly funny that your life is absorbed by this. To me, I don't know if it feels that way to you, but it's entertaining and disturbing and darkly hilarious. What your beat has become, Alan, that's a good summary.
- [02:04]
Alan Shipnuck
Yeah, I mean, I went back and looked in 2021, Golf Week did this poll of what were the biggest stories of the year and number two on the list was that the USGA mandated the driver length be capped. That was controversy in the golf world. People were up in arms about this. And then Liv arrived and we got into the realm of power politics, you know, greed, vengeance, all these Shakespearean themes. And it's been a wild ride. But in the post Tiger, you know, epoch, we kind of, we needed it because golf is inherently boring and it's, it's been great for the content business.
- [02:44]
Pablo Torre
And Tiger woods will be in this story as well in a little bit here. But the general thesis is no exaggeration by Alan Shipnuk, because if you do not give a shit about golf at all, what I can safely assure you is that today's episode does not require you to know anything about what driver length even is. All I need you to understand is that three years ago, Alan Shipnock, my old colleague at Swartzillustrated, was writing an unauthorized biography of one of the greatest and most bombastic American athletes of all time, a golfer named Phil Mickelson. And the key word here is unauthorized. Because Allen, in the course of his reporting, managed to pry open this very early window into a new golf super league created and funded by the Saudi Arabian government called liv. And liv, for one thing, was about to poach star players from American golf's incumbent governing body, otherwise known as the PGA Tour. And this itself was crazy. But Liv was also doing this on the heels of the 2018 assassination of the Washington Post's Jamal Khashoggi. We return now to a story that has been in the headlines all week. The disappearance of a Saudi Arabian journalist in Istanbul, Turkey.
- [04:05]
Alan Shipnuck
According to reports, it is suspected that.
- [04:08]
Pablo Torre
He was murdered, literally cut in pieces, and smuggled out of Turkey by Saudi security forces.
- [04:16]
Alan Shipnuck
This goes back really to the mid 2000 and teens when there was this idea there was going to be a breakaway league and golf was going to be reshaped. And, you know, one of the problems in golf is that the players love to call themselves, you know, private contractors. They get to pick and choose their tournaments. And does LeBron want to go have to play in Sacramento or Milwaukee in February? He does not. But he still shows up because it's mandated. And in golf, it's never been that way. And so the PGA Tour had, you know, 45 events, and the Stars would only play 20 of them. And it was bad for the product. And so there was this notion that we'd create kind of a super league of golf where the players were contractually obligated to show up every time. And that started kicking around in 2017, 2018. The Saudis came on as investors in what was called the Premier Golf League. And this was bubbling for literal years, and no one paid too much attention to it. But Phil was at the center of everything, as is his want. He was negotiating with the Saudis, he was negotiating with the Premier Golf League, he was negotiating with the PGA Tour. I mean, he was like a triple agent. And no one really understood the state of play because it was all happening in the shadows. And the interview that Phil did with me, which dropped In February of 2022, that kind of blew the roof off of the whole thing. The World Golf hall of Famer told journalist Alan Shipnook, the author of an upcoming unauthorized biography of Mickelson, that he would support the new league.
- [05:42]
Pablo Torre
Even though the Saudis are scary to.
- [05:44]
Alan Shipnuck
Get involved with, we know they killed Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay.
- [05:52]
Pablo Torre
Knowing this, why would I even consider it?
- [05:54]
Alan Shipnuck
Because this is a once in a.
- [05:55]
Pablo Torre
Lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.
- [05:59]
Alan Shipnuck
I'm not sure I even want it to succeed, but just the idea of it is allowing us to get things.
- [06:04]
Pablo Torre
Done with the PGA Tour.
- [06:06]
Alan Shipnuck
It was raw and it was honest. It captured the moment where everyone was, was looking out for their own interest. There was all these secret negotiations going on and when that came out, the state of play became more obvious and, and things started to accelerate and, and get messier.
- [06:24]
Pablo Torre
Phil Mickelson went on to say another quote. I'll recite this one too. Alan is the worst liar and a pathetic human.
- [06:32]
Alan Shipnuck
I mean, Phil's been this duplicitous character his whole career. He's a master manipulator of the media. His nickname on tour was Fig Jam, which is I'm good, just ask me, you know. Another nickname was Genius. LIV has had some impact, even though PGA Tour will never admit that. So some of the players who went over there can, can hang their hat on that. Now of course, they wouldn't have gone without the money, but that was one of Phil's primary talking points way back when is that the PGA Tour is this huge bloated bureaucracy and the players who are the product, are the show, are not getting a big enough slice of the pie. And as soon as LIV arrived, the tour opened the spigot and the money started flowing to the players and Phil's been vindicated.
- [07:36]
Pablo Torre
So we're going to get to America's golfer in chief in just a bit here. And Alan Shipnock, you should know, has interviewed dozens of golfers that have personally played with and against Donald Trump. But you should recall that before Trump ever got involved, the founding of the Saudi backed league that we're here talking about today did trigger a cold civil war.
- [07:59]
Alan Shipnuck
Tonight, the PGA Tour making a striking announcement suspending players competing in the LIV Golf Invitation Series. It's been an unfortunate week that was created by some unfortunate decisions. I'm surprised that a lot of these guys, because they they say one thing and then they do another. It's pretty duplicitous on, on their part.
- [08:19]
Pablo Torre
To say one thing and then do another thing.
- [08:21]
Alan Shipnuck
The players who have chosen to go to live and to play on, to play there, I disagree with it. It's fractured the sport in a way that's unimaginable. Like if the AFC and the NFC never competed against each other. How weird would that be if half of the stars in the NBA were suddenly playing on the G League? That's where we are in golf. The top players are split and we only see them at the major championships four times a year. The sport has suffered. A lot of fans have been turned off by the rhetoric.
- [08:58]
Pablo Torre
And that rhetoric, as levied by the LIV Tour, involved courtrooms and dozens of citations of alleged monopolistic behavior on the part of the pga. And the players who defected to the Saudi backed tour now having to defend themselves. I don't condone human rights violations at all.
- [09:15]
Alan Shipnuck
It's anywhere in the world. You wouldn't play if Vladimir Putin had a tournament, would you play that? Speculation. I'm not even gonna comment on speculation.
- [09:26]
Pablo Torre
But Today, here in 2025, with the US Open coming up this weekend, the scene is conspicuously different, as we saw earlier this year when the executives in charge of LIV and the PGA got back together in the same room at the White House.
- [09:47]
Alan Shipnuck
For close to four hours at the White House, President Donald Trump met with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, player directors Tiger woods and Adam Scott, and public investment fund governor Yasser Al Ramayan, all to discuss the reunification of the professional game after Trump gets reelected. You know, six months ago, one of his first acts as president elect is to bring them together to, to try and solve this cold war of golf. Trump played golf with Jay Monahan and then he had two Oval Office meetings. And this is all about trying to broker this truce, reunite the golf world, and also get the Saudi money into the ecosystem of professional sports in America. Now, the PGA Tour released a statement. Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, we have initiated a discussion about the reunification of golf. We are committed to moving as quickly as possible and will share additional details as appropriate. I have no doubt that Donald Trump cares more about the state of professional gulf than he does about Gaza or Ukraine. The amount of space this is taking up in his brain is absolutely frightening.
- [10:59]
Pablo Torre
And in terms of that space, this is no exaggeration either, because the President is not simply obsessed with golf. According to the tracker didtrumpgolftoday.com, trump has spent an unprecedented 25.9% of his presidency to date, golfing at an estimated cost of $50.4 million to U.S. taxpayers. And I am also further told that Trump has already been making moves to set up his post presidential golfing interests. But first, you just gotta understand what Donald Trump was like before.
- [11:37]
Alan Shipnuck
Before Donald Trump ever thought about getting into politics, he was just a golf course developer. He was just a dude who loved golf. He loved to play with good players. He had an LPGA event at his, at his course in Florida that he presided over. And everyone in golf knew Donald Trump as just kind of this, this fun loving, golfy dude. And no one imagined that he would become the President United States and that he would get mixed up in all of this. And to understand it, you know, he's, he's an outer burrow driver. You know, this is Donnie from Queens. And being accepted by society in, in New York was one of the driving forces in his life, and golf was part of that. Golf course memberships at a certain stage in life are the most coveted thing there is because every rich dude can buy a plane, they, they can buy a Ferrari. But to get into Augusta national, to get into Pine, to Shinnecock, to Marion, to National Golf Links, you cannot buy your way in. And Trump could never get into any of those clubs. He was rejected by all of them. And it touched something so deep in his soul that none of us could ever understand. And he built his whole golf course portfolio, this, this whole real estate empire through golf, just so he could have his own fiefdoms and he could actually have a club to hang out at because he wasn't going to get in any of the good ones. He had to create his own. And that entry point for Donald Trump.
- [13:05]
Pablo Torre
Into golf, there's an inversion of the Groucho Marx quote, right? I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member. It's the exact opposite exclusivity here being the defining force, the momentum behind, I mean, not just golf, but I suppose every aspect of the way that our society has been remade in his image. And you have, I think, done as much digging into the question of what's it like to play golf with Donald Trump as I think anybody on the planet.
- [13:35]
Alan Shipnuck
The irritating thing about Donald Trump as a golfer is he's actually pretty good. When you look at his swing, it's, it's so funky and he's just lunging at the ball and his club's all over the place. But when he gets down into the impact Zone. It's, it's. His technique is beautiful, and it's grading to the rest of us because it's like he should be hitting the ball over the planet. But he does have good hand eye coordination, and he squares the club face, and he's actually, you know, a pretty solid golfer. And, you know, Phil Mickelson told me way back when, you know, Trump has clubhead speed, and there's no substitute for that. And when, when you watch those clips of Joe Biden, there was an absence of clubhead speed.
- [14:12]
Pablo Torre
I think that's fair. I think that is objectively fair.
- [14:16]
Alan Shipnuck
That's not a political statement. That's just a fact. Now, did Trump shoot 68 at Bel Air like he's claimed? Has he won all those club championships? We know, that's all. But he's a solid, you know, I would say seven or eight handicap, and that's, that's legit. I mean, that's probably better than 90% of golfers in America. And he's a showman. You know, I watched him in pro ams playing with some of the best players in the world. And the crowds out there, everyone's screaming his name. And he tends to, he tends to hit a good shot when the crowd gets large. I mean, he's got a putt that matters. He tends to make it. He's just, he's just good at golf.
- [14:48]
Pablo Torre
There is a fig jam dynamic to Trump, much like the man that you quoted just then, a I'm good, just ask me aspect to his whole. I mean, he might have been the most infamous originator of that philosophy.
- [15:01]
Alan Shipnuck
Actually, Trump's driving his golf cart up onto the tee box.
- [15:05]
Pablo Torre
This is important.
- [15:05]
Alan Shipnuck
The putting green.
- [15:06]
Pablo Torre
This is important. Donald Trump drives the cart.
- [15:10]
Alan Shipnuck
Yes, he drives the cart. He always drives the cart. And since you're playing at his courses, he can do whatever the hell he wants. So he will literally drive right up on a tee boxes, which is very much a. No, no for anybody else. He'll drive right to the edge of the greens. He would probably drive through a bunker if he had bigger tires. Like, it's just. He's all over the place. He's got a little bit like Cruella de Vil out there and then in.
- [15:29]
Pablo Torre
The golf cart, a bit of a metaphor, eating itself at, you know.
- [15:35]
Alan Shipnuck
Yeah. Trump is enraging many people with his remarks about Mexican immigrants. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists. And some, I assume, I mean, you go back to when Trump first ran for president and his, his Very scathing anti immigrant comments. And the PGA Tour was so unsettled by that, they took away his tournament at Doral. So Trump was, you know, he was ostracized by the PGA Tour by building these courses. You know, we all know Trump needs endless validation. So it was enough to have these courses and have members join. He wanted big time tournaments and he really lusted after the so called major championship, the, the biggest, most glittering, most prestigious tournaments. And when he, the PGA Championship was awarded to Trump bed minister, that was the end of like a 15 year quest that Trump had had tried to charm and schmooze every official at every governing body and it was a huge deal for him. And after sixth in a rare showing of backbone for the golf world, the PGA of America pulled that tournament.
- [16:36]
Pablo Torre
The 2022 PGA Championship will no longer take place at Trump national in Bedminster. The PGA says that holding the event there in the aftermath of last week's.
- [16:47]
Alan Shipnuck
Riot would damage its brand. So Trump lost this, this, this crown jewel event that he'd been lusting after for literal decades.
- [16:56]
Pablo Torre
His club was kicked out of the club.
- [16:58]
Alan Shipnuck
You cannot imagine how much that wounded him. And you know, he bought Turnberry, which is one of the great courses in the world and it's, it's hosted some, some tremendous British Opens. Famously the Duel in the Sun, Nicholas And Watson in 77 has this, this rich history. It's the prettiest of all the, the open venues right on the ocean and the tweedy gents at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews have made it very clear they will never bring a British Open to Turnberry as long as Trump is alive and can overshadow the event. So now tournament that matters has turned its back on Trump and he's completely on the outs. He's spent, you know, the latter, you know, third of his life trying to ingratiate himself into the rota of these, these big time tournaments and they've all been taken away. But now here comes Liv Golf run by his, his buddy Greg Norman, funded by the Saudis with whom he's had business dealings going back to, you know, selling condos at Trump tower. In the 80s he bought his first yacht from, from a Saudi national. You know, the ultimate compliment that Donald Trump has ever paid anyone was when he said about the Saudis, they pay cash. That's the highest compliment in his universe.
- [18:09]
Pablo Torre
So at this point in the story, I do need to jump in here to introduce you to this other genuine golf evangelist who is very familiar with both Donald Trump and Alan Shipnock, the aforementioned Greg Norman, whose nickname when he was a Hall of Fame golfer was the Shark. And the Shark was appointed commissioner and CEO of Liv Golf in late 2021. And Liv's very first event was in 2022 in the UK, which was especially memorable, as it turns out, for today's guest because Alan Shipnook had shown up to cover the event not long after publishing Phil Mickelson's quote about ignoring all that stuff about executing gay people and bone sawing journalists because Saudi Arabia could finally, quote, reshape how the PGA Tour operates. End quote. But then at this grand inaugural tournament welcoming the world to this new event, a bunch of security guards from the live tour kicked Alan out.
- [19:09]
Alan Shipnuck
I had texted Greg Norman and I said to him, are you aware that some necklace goons like kicked me out of this press conference? And he didn't respond. And so, okay. And I was in a taxi going back to my hotel. My phone started melting because that video had been released. And I honestly had no idea that Norman had been standing there.
- [19:28]
Pablo Torre
This video obtained by cnn shows how LIV Golf will be operating their business behind Ship Nook. Watching all of this go down. That would be the CEO of LIV.
- [19:40]
Alan Shipnuck
Golf, the shark, Greg Norman. His face is twisted into the scowl. He looks like the Grim reaper. I mean, that's what makes the picture so funny, is just the expression on his. So good. And I, I didn't see him. He was directly behind me. And so that, that was incredible. And then like you couldn't even make this up. Just then he texted me. He says, I had no idea, you know, and I was like this, like, okay. I just, it was so insane. So that's when I screenshotted it and I put it on, on Twitter and then it, it kind of blew up. So now live golf launches. And this is, this is the on ramp that, that Donald Trump has been waiting for to get back into big time golf. And it's quite convenient because no sort of reputable golf course wants to be associated with live golf. In the early years, you know, they're struggling to find venues. So of course Trump raises his hand. So now you have, the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia is now funneling money to a former president United States to host these golf tournaments. It's an unprecedented alignment of foreign policy and, and private business interests. So Trump starts hosting these live events and there becomes this, this overlap with, with the live fans are now, they now have this, this MAGA element and sort of this, this anti establishment, anti elite and you know, it was commonly known as live bots, like these noisy accounts on Twitter who are pro live. You know, there's now become. They become pro Trump. It just becomes this nexus of ideology and self interest. And it's totally fascinating. Of course, Liv hires Ari Fleischer to help with their pr.
- [21:29]
Pablo Torre
Former White House under George Bush. Yeah, PR guy. Basically a flack now repurposed for this.
- [21:36]
Alan Shipnuck
Yes, but Ari Fleischer was in, in charge of the White house Communications on 9 11. He was in some ways the face of the American response.
- [21:45]
Pablo Torre
Yeah. And for those who didn't read the 11 Commission's report, the hundreds of pages that were published, I should say that even though the commission found, quote, no credible evidence of Saudi government complicity, one of the commissioners did go on to say, quote, there was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government, end quote. Which is to say that when, you know, a live golf event backed by Saudi Arabia shows up up at Bedminster, a Trump course in New Jersey in the shadow Alan of New York City and what used to be the Twin Towers, it all felt like a little much to a bunch of the family members of the people who had died in one of America's foremost modern tragedies.
- [22:31]
Alan Shipnuck
Well, yeah, and some of the surviving family members protested outside the gates. You know, they, they, they made their presence felt.
- [22:38]
Pablo Torre
I see these golfers dodge questions, put their head in the sand, not want to confront us, not want to address our issues and just say, golf is for the greater good, or, I'm doing this for my family. Well, my dad went to work that day providing for his family, and he got blown away.
- [22:55]
Alan Shipnuck
It's important to understand the 911 Commission Report only gave three pages to the Saudi question, and its authors basically said, this is too big for us. There are more questions that need to be explored, and we didn't have the resources or the time to do that. So the Saudi Arabian government has always taken the, the, the stance that we were exonerated by the 911 Commission. But that's not true. The 911 Commission said there, there appear to be some links. We have some, some tangential evidence of individuals, and it's, it's very much hairsplitting to say they were individuals in the government, but there was no government collusion. It's like, okay, well, even, even more to the point, it's a very subtle thing.
- [23:38]
Pablo Torre
Well, and, and even more to the point, no less than Jay Monahan, head of the pga, made the connection as.
- [23:45]
Alan Shipnuck
It relates to the families of nine, 11. I have two families that are close to me that lost loved ones and so my heart goes out to them. And I would ask, you know, any player that has left or any player that would ever consider leaving, have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour? You know, if Liv Golf was funded by Australian money or English money or some other foreign source, it would not be nearly as controversial. But because it it's Saudi, the uneasiness with the power and the tentacles that that the Saudi economy has throughout the entire globe, that's added a whole element to this.
- [24:37]
Pablo Torre
If you're anything like me, when you were a kid, you were a big dreamer. Maybe you dreamed of being an astronaut.
- [24:43]
Alan Shipnuck
Maybe the president of the United States.
- [24:46]
Pablo Torre
Maybe you wanted to be the shortstop for the Yankees. But now we're dreaming of something else like owning our own businesses.
- [24:51]
Alan Shipnuck
But let's be honest, launching it. It's total chaos.
- [24:54]
Pablo Torre
Websites, shipping, your cousin wanting to collab.
- [24:58]
Alan Shipnuck
It's a mess. That's where Shopify comes in.
- [25:00]
Pablo Torre
They power 10% of all E commerce in the United States from brands like Mattel to your aunt's candleshop. Can't design a site Shopify's got ready to go templates.
- [25:10]
Alan Shipnuck
Need help writing copy or touching up pics.
- [25:12]
Pablo Torre
AI tools want customers built in email and social tools. And if you get stuck 247 support real award winning humans.
- [25:21]
Alan Shipnuck
Turn those dreams into and give them the best shot at success with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com.
- [25:32]
Pablo Torre
Go to shopify.com shopify.com look the the notion that the America first party that drapes itself in patriotism, whose bots tend to have as their avatar the American flag, are aligned allied in business with the Saudi Arabian sovereign investment fund, the private wealth fund. While Donald Trump himself, just to again just state some of the obvious, has so many conflicts of interest that it's hard to recap here. But it is Jared Kushner, his son in law with more than $2 billion in the private equity firm with Saudi Arabia. It's Saudi backed real estate investments in Trump Organization projects including a new Trump Tower in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. It's also just Trump calling the prime minister of Saudi Arabia, of course Mohammed bin Salman mbs as he's often referred to quote, a great guy and a friend despite being also the person at the head of the government that bone saw a journalist from the Washington Post. So all of it. It's, it's just it, it kind of blows your mind when you're forced to put it all down on paper together.
- [26:51]
Alan Shipnuck
MBS is, he's the crown prince, he's not the king of Saudi Arabia. His father's still alive. And of the, the five previous Crown princes, only one actually ascended to the throne. It's not a sure thing. And he could have been replaced, he could have been ousted. And he was still kind of early in, in his, in his reign. But Donald Trump helped keep him in power. You know, he sends the Secretary of State over to Riyadh for photo ops and to assure the world that the US is still behind mbs. And that' crucial moment for, for MBS retaining, you know, his, the throne. And you know, and Trump says to Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, you know, you know, basically tell me, owes us one. And that got cashed in with the investment in Kushner, the investment through Live Golf. You know, Lannister always pays his debts and MBS's favorite TV show is Game of Thrones. And you know, there was very much like, okay, you saved my bacon. How can I help?
- [27:52]
Pablo Torre
Another quote, by the way, from Game of Thrones that I want to cite for you, which is that chaos is a ladder.
- [27:57]
Alan Shipnuck
So what you have to understand is the Saudis are always playing the long game here. And the guy who's overseen Live Golf, who's kind of the patriarch, is one of MBS's closest advisors, his Excellency Yashir Al Ramayan. It's a great title. And he sees golf as a way to open up Saudi society and to teach people how to come together. And he's a belief, he's a true believer. He's like Norman in that regard. And that's why they're kindred spirits. He was this unknown banker who helped put Mohammed bin Salman in power. You know, there was a so called chic down where, where MBS locked up a lot of the, the, the leading members of Saudi society. They had to transfer $100 billion back to the state. And it was all Rumayan who actually oversaw the transactions. He was like the heavy in all of this. So he's this very shadowy figure that, that no one knows, but he's probably the most powerful person in the world who's not ahead of state because not only does he run the pif, which has, you know, a trillion dollars of assets, he's also the chairman of Aramco, which is the Saudi oil company, the state oil company. That's the most profitable company in the world. It's the big thing in golf, and we're gonna enjoy it.
- [29:08]
Pablo Torre
That's why I'm here.
- [29:09]
Alan Shipnuck
I'm gonna play the pro am, and I'm gonna have a lot of hopefully fun. But he does have this very pure love of the sport. And in some ways, LIV Golf is like fantasy camp for Yasir is a business that's losing tons of money, but he gets to play in the pro ams with Phil, with Dustin Johnson, with Brooks Koepka. You've never seen anyone happier than Yasir Al Rumayan during a live pro am because he just scoots around in his cart and he gets a putting lesson from Cam Smith, and then he goes up a few holes and he gets a driving lesson from Bryson Dechambeau. And then he goes and he yucks it up with Dustin, and they talk about what they're gonna do on the yacht later, and he's having the time of his life.
- [29:46]
Pablo Torre
It's just funny. It's just. Just funny that again, multiple things are true. There's a yes and dynamic here, right? All of these people are using golf for self enrichment, but also. Yes. And they love golf. That is not in dispute by anybody. They actually love the sport.
- [30:04]
Alan Shipnuck
And so you have Yasir is. Is the patriarch of live golf. And. And his counterpart, the. The commissioner of the p. Of the PGA Tour is Jay Monahan.
- [30:17]
Pablo Torre
There's a. There's a segment on CNBC in which these two people who were engaged once in litigation against each other, right? Accusations of monopolistic behavior from LIV to the pga, right. Dozens of citations of monopolistic behavior in lawsuits. They gather on CNBC in between Trump administrations. I believe we are at this point in the timeline and what happens there at this scene, it's one of the.
- [30:46]
Alan Shipnuck
Most shocking moments in the history of professional golf.
- [30:48]
Pablo Torre
Just this picture alone is going to surprise a lot of people, seeing the two of you together smiling, given especially what has been a hostility between LIV and the pga. So let's just start where I think a lot of people have a question is how in the world did this come about?
- [31:06]
Alan Shipnuck
We're now about 10 months into the LIV golf era. You know, it's launched in the summer of 22, and as you note, the PGA Tour and live are suing each other. The Justice Department is. Is snooping around. The press conference barbs and bitchiness is at an unprecedented level for the gentleman's game. You know, this quiet, boutique little sport that no one's ever really cared about is on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and you know, the Tour is burning up $10 million a month in legal fees trying to defend all these things. It's just they're on this path to mutually assured destruction because both Tours are losing so much money at this point. And Jay and Yasir pop on CNBC with no warning to anybody, including all the top players who have put their, their, their necks in the guillotine to try and defend the Tour, to try and justify liv. And they go on and they announce that there's peace in our time and the lawsuits are over and we're all friends. Well, listen, I think today is a, it's a historical day for the PGA Tour and the game of golf, and it's a historical day for the PIF and the DP World Tour. And you're right, you know, there's been a lot of tension in our sport over the last couple of years, but what we're talking about today is coming together to unify the game of golf. We've recognized that together we can have a far greater impact on this game than we can working apart. And I give Yasser great credit for coming to the table, coming to discussions with an open heart and an open mind. We did the same. And the game of golf is better for what we've done here today. It was very unsteadying, very unsettling. Like what have we been fighting for? You know, the Roy McElroy's of the, of the world had, had made this intensely personal and they felt like they were defending the honor of the PGA Tour and, and the Stars and Stripes and, and now it's all of a sudden, you know, money wins, we're all pals, it's going to be okay. And it was just an all time thunderbolt.
- [33:10]
Pablo Torre
And what happens next in 2023, despite Liv's many pre existing allegations of monopolistic behavior on the part of the PGA is a shocking announcement for anybody who remembers the birth of this whole thing. It is the announcement of a merger. An announcement, by the way, that the now former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, did find eyebrow raising for the record. As she recently told me in an interview for Pablo Torre finds out. The irony is not lost on anybody who is familiar with the thesis of LIV golf in the first place, in which the PGA was acting monopolistically. But now a merger between the two feels almost farcical. Isn't that even a bigger monopoly?
- [33:58]
Alan Shipnuck
So this is something that I believe the Justice Department's Antitrust division was looking into. And I remember when it was proposed, there was a lot of, about how this would, you know, affect things. And I think just more generally there's been a disturbing set of signs suggesting that some of these decisions may not be made on basis of the law and the facts, but instead based on the whims of the White House. And I think that's pretty troubling.
- [34:29]
Pablo Torre
But this merger, you should know, has not happened yet. Although the clock continues to tick.
- [34:38]
Alan Shipnuck
There's just been this, these protracted negotiations. There was a lot of stagecraft. And that's why Trump's involvement has been consequential, because we know he'll make the Justice Department go away. The last thing Donald Trump's gonna do is, is sic the Justice Department on his friends in the golf world.
- [34:56]
Pablo Torre
All of which takes us to another conspicuous confusion in the present day. And yet another bet that American sports are making on Saudi Arabia's public investment fund and vice versa.
- [35:12]
Alan Shipnuck
One of the pieces that moved on the chessboard in these, in these protracted negotiations is the PGA Tour took $1.5 billion from the strategic Sports Group, which was this hastily assembled kind of investment group of some bold faced American sports franchise owners, notably John Henry of the Red Sox. And, and that was a way for the Tour to get the money it needed. Because to keep the top players from abandoning the PGA Tour, they had to jack purse's way up. They had to create all these incentives and Monahan was writing checks he couldn't cash. So bringing in this private equity money was crucial to keep the lights on. If they don't consummate the deal with the PIF and Yasir in Saudi Arabia. But what is in it for John Henry? Because no one understands how they're going to get this money back. Well, the PJ Tour has been a test balloon for the Saudis. Can, can they come into the American sports landscape? Because you know, they bought Newcastle United, a big, a big football team in Europe. They've, they've hosted F1, they've hosted tennis, all kinds of other events.
- [36:18]
Pablo Torre
Oh, and there are rumors of every, like basketball leagues, independent, I mean just like competitors to the NBA. Live golf versions of every sport has been basically bandied about at this point.
- [36:29]
Alan Shipnuck
But if this deal can get consummated and Yasir comes in basically as a partner next to John Henry in the PGA Tour, now they have this strategic alignment, now they have this kinship, now they have this business relationship. And so the next time the Dallas Cowboys go up for sale or some Other blue chip franchise. Maybe John Henry is the face of the buying group, but maybe Yasir's putting in all the money, and that becomes a way to change this whole sports landscape. And so there's so much going on here beneath the surface, and some of it's conjecture, you know, informed conjecture. But there's, there's just a lot of pieces here that transcend this little, tiny boutique sport of golf that no one really cares about. And one of the most delicious things that came out, you know, there was these Senate hearings. Today's hearing is about much more than the game of golf. It's about how a brutal, repressive regime can buy influence, indeed even take over a cherished American institution to cleanse. So these hearings on Capitol Hill were overseen by Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and it was to examine the issue of sports washing and to shine a light on what is Saudi Arabia trying to accomplish here and what does it mean for this proud institution of the PGA Tour that's just given over a billion dollars of char. Charitable money back into communities? It's, it's a very fraught question. Athletes like the PGA Tour golf players are role models. They are ambassadors of our values. And the institutions that concern us today.
- [38:13]
Pablo Torre
Are vital to our national interests.
- [38:18]
Alan Shipnuck
And in, in these documents, you know, Yasir had, had, had basically hired some American consultants to game plan this whole thing. And one of the things that they speculated on was that, that Yeshir could become a member of Augusta National. He could get a green jacket and, and he could get a membership to the rna. And again, like we were talking about with Trump, you can have all the money in the world. You can have the biggest boats and the biggest planes like the Saudis do, but you're never going to get into Augusta National. You're never going to get into the RNA because those, those are the gatekeepers of the western world. But if you can ingratiate yourself at the highest levels of the sport, then maybe the doors to Augusta swing open. And it was in the black and white of this agate of these Senate documents. It was kind of the ultimate end game. Why has the PIF poured $5 billion into Liv Golf with no hopes of ever getting it back? It is a sinkhole of money, but it's like the hot dogs at Costco. It's a loss leader. If they can create these relationships, if they go to the Masters and be in the rooms, you can get a lot more than $5 billion of business.
- [39:25]
Pablo Torre
There is the notion of when you are the most powerful people in the world. When you are rich and you're control of state governments, what can you not just buy? It turns out that the answer is entree into the most exclusive literal clubs in the world.
- [39:43]
Alan Shipnuck
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- [40:40]
Pablo Torre
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- [40:42]
Alan Shipnuck
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- [41:12]
Pablo Torre
And now as you compare this to the hot dogs at Costco, thanks to your reporting, thanks to our just obsession with this story, we have a clear sense of, yes, how the sausage gets made and it turns out that the ingredients in there are pretty up. It's almost too much to process. But you lay it out and it's hard to deny that what I'm finding out today is that this is very complicated and yet extraordinarily stupidly simple.
- [41:44]
Alan Shipnuck
Yeah, that's well said. And you know, the sports washing is hung over this, this whole live golf enterprise from the beginning. But as an illustration of how effective sports washing can be in 2022 when when Liv kicked off in the summer, every press conference the players were pummeled with questions about the Saudi money, about jamal Khashoggi, about MBS, about the 91111 families. And it was this drum beat at every tournament and now it's completely exited the discourse. It's never mentioned, it's never thought about, it's never written about. I haven't heard a question like that in two years at a live event. That's what's insidious about sports watching is that it Works. At some level, you just accept, like, hey, this is. They're. These guys are part of the ecosystem now. We're enjoying the spoils. And so it just is what it is. And that's why people get into sports watching. Whether you go back to the Berlin Olympics and Jesse Owens, you can. You know, you can. When. When Russia hosted the Olympics while they were invading Crimea, you know, while. While China hosted the Olympics and they're. They were building actual concentration camps. Like, sports watching has been part of the playbook forever. Sports watching works. That's. It's. It's a sad fact of modern life. And we. We've seen that with. With just the discourse around Liv.
- [43:01]
Pablo Torre
What do the players want in this at this point, Alan? To. To ask about. About them now, towards the end here, like, how do they factor into any of this?
- [43:11]
Alan Shipnuck
Well, they're definitely. They're definitely pawns on this larger chessboard, but, you know, they have a voice, and it's revealed people's values, for better and for worse. And so for. For Rory, it was loyalty. For Tiger, it was money and power because, you know, Liv gave him a purpose after his car crash. You know, it kind of took golf away and to rally the troops and to preserve his legacy on the PGA Tour. But to be the guy who's calling all the shots, which he's been doing behind the scenes, that's been deeply gratifying to him.
- [43:44]
Pablo Torre
Well, he was there, right? Well, Tiger was. You know, when you talk about Yasir and Jay from Live in the PGA gathering at the White House as Trump is brokering, you know, golf, Yalta, Tiger's. Tiger's right there, isn't he? Isn't Tiger on the grounds as well?
- [44:01]
Alan Shipnuck
He is, because Tiger has. Has seized control of the board of directors of the PGA Tour, and he's more important than Monahan at this point for getting a deal done. So he has to be there. But let me ask you, is there anybody like our Tiger? How are you? He's the great. Would you want to just say a couple of words, Tiger? Ah, he doesn't. He's much more comfortable tied down tight. Hey, it's an honor to be here. It's an honor to be here with you, Mr. President, and to be honored here with all of you. Thank you so much. But, you know, the players who went to live, some of them may have been pure of heart and felt like this. This is. This is a chance to modernize a sport. It's certainly. You know, there's a lot of jokes about the live Tournaments with the shotgun starts and the music in the background and they're 54 holes instead of 72. But there's no doubt they're attracting a younger demographic and that's needed for, for golf to sustain itself.
- [45:01]
Pablo Torre
You might even call it a once in a lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.
- [45:08]
Alan Shipnuck
Yeah, you could. So there Live got some things right. You know, as we were talking about at the top, all the top players, every player on LIV has to play in every tournament. So when you go to, you know, live Virginia, which is happening, you know, here in June, and I'm sure the President will make a cameo there, you know, you're going to get Phil and Dustin and Brooks and Bryson, you know, and the PGA Tour has reshaped its model to kind of follow suit. They have these so called signature events now where the top players gather. It's a lot more money, it's a smaller field, there's no cut. They've kind of stolen some of the LIV ideas. So, you know, the live proponents would say we've helped push golf forward and there's some truth to that. The live streaming choices are vastly superior to the tours. The social media is way better. So will they be welcomed back into, into the fold these, these live defectors? That's going to take time to sort out. But if a deal gets consummated, if everyone, you know, is posing on, in the Rose Garden together with, with, with the President, United States, that'll go a long way towards, I think, building bridges to reuniting the sport and to bringing the LIV guys back into the fold. And so if that does blow up and LIV sticks around forever and the top players are never together on the same tour ever again, that's not a great legacy for the guys who went.
- [46:29]
Pablo Torre
Over there as Tiger Woods. By the way, a brief update is literally dating Donald Trump Jr. S ex wife.
- [46:38]
Alan Shipnuck
What is your thought about Tiger woods.
- [46:40]
Pablo Torre
Now becoming part of the broader Trump family?
- [46:44]
Alan Shipnuck
Well, I love Tiger and I love Vanessa and Tiger actually called me a few months ago and he and you have a very special, very good relationship with Tiger. I played golf with him a couple of times over the last month and he's a fantastic guy and a fantastic athlete. And he told me about it and I said, tiger, that's good, that's good. I'm very happy for both.
- [47:06]
Pablo Torre
I just let them both be happy.
- [47:11]
Alan Shipnuck
Another plot twist.
- [47:12]
Pablo Torre
Just, just, just a plot twist.
- [47:14]
Alan Shipnuck
It's been a journey. You know this, we're now, we're now. It's basically three years to the day since, since Liv launched. And in some ways, it's, it's made golf more important than ever. It's made people realize, like, geez, maybe, maybe if, if I want to be somebody in the world of global finance or geopolitics, I better work on my short game. Because it's, it is a powerful, powerful, powerful force when you're on the go. And it's time to refresh your energy. Grab an ice cold Celsius, where zero sugar, seven essential vitamins and proven ingredients meet pure refreshment. Unlike traditional energy drinks, each sip of Celsius is a perfect balance of flavor and function.
- [48:04]
Pablo Torre
So whether you're hitting the gym, the.
- [48:06]
Alan Shipnuck
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- [48:10]
Pablo Torre
Celsius.com to learn more. And so this is where I just need to state what may already be obvious to you at this point, given how American industry has largely reacted to the current administration whims, as the former FTC chair put it to us, which is that Trump's extensive portfolio of golf courses, the clubs he bought so that Donnie from Queens could in fact be a member, have been trending up. The whole thing where the PGA decided to punish Trump for his irresponsible rhetoric and January 6th and all that stuff that is long over.
- [48:56]
Alan Shipnuck
Yes. So with Trump's entry into politics, you know, the, the stocks crashed because he became radioactive. Everything got taken away. But now it's starting to rise because he's exerting his influence. And the European Tour, or also known as the DP World Tour, that's a big Dubai company, DP World, which paid hundreds of millions of dollars to rename it as part of this further influx of Middle Eastern money into professional golf. The DP World Tour recently announced that, that the Scottish Open will be played this year at Trump Aberdeen, which is one of the newer properties in some of the most spectacular dunes in the world. And so this campaign that Trump is on to get back in the good graces of the golf world is clearly working. You know, this is the first real domino to fall.
- [49:43]
Pablo Torre
And so you may be wondering, relatedly, if it even matters at all that, you know, Trump's biggest financial backer and most notable top advisor, Elon Musk, just called for his impeachment last Friday. Or if it matters that Musk also tweeted that Trump is in the Epstein files. Or if it matters more specifically that Trump's club in Bedminster, the one we discussed earlier, just got hit with 18 health code violations last month, nine of them labeled critical, making Trump National Golf Club the most poorly rated establishment in Somerset County, New Jersey. But it does not. None of it seems to golf like America moves on from such stories with the speed of our president driving his own golf cart. And yeah, Look, Trump owns 15 courses all around the world, 11 of them in the U.S. one of them opened during his first administration in Dubai. And the discussion now around Trump advertising the new host of a newly rebranded DP World Tour is extremely familiar.
- [50:50]
Alan Shipnuck
This course is going to look incredible on tv. People are going to want to go play it. So, yeah, the stock is rising and who knows what's the next announcement will be? But for sure, behind the scenes, you see it with law firms, you see it with corporations, you see it with political parties. Parties, people are sort of bowing or caving to the Trump influence. And so the European Tour is trying to get out in front of that and welcome them back into the fold. And that's a huge deal in the context of Trump's desire to re ingratiate himself in the golf world and in.
- [51:24]
Pablo Torre
Terms of the dream, in terms of what reintegration into polite golf society looks like. Alan, what is Trump dreaming of when it comes to his courses?
- [51:32]
Alan Shipnuck
Yeah, a soft landing for, for post political life. You know, nothing would make him happier than starting in 2028, he can just play golf and host golf tournaments. Literally nothing would make him happier. So, you know, Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump's never going to get that. But if he can, if he can solve this, I think he'll feel like he's one up on Obama.
- [51:54]
Pablo Torre
And in terms of that ultimate and most exclusive prize, Donald Trump finally hosted his first major championship. The President of the United States does have a soft target for his soft power.
- [52:11]
Alan Shipnuck
The rna, which, which runs the, the British Open. They are the ultra traditionalists in the golf world, as you can imagine. And they have, they have not tried to hide their disdain for Donald Trump. And they, they will cut off their nose despite their face, and not go back to Turnberry, which is such a wonderful venue. You just to prove their point, like they've made that so clear. But now reporting starting to bubble out. You know, the Scottish government trying to get in the good graces of the Trump administration, are trying to broker and open at Turnberry. So this is going to be quite a high stakes negotiation because the guys that run the rna, they do need some government funding, they do need their help every year to make the, the Opens work. And so will they Cage. You know, we've seen this. So many entities have caved to Donald Trump. You get the occasional Harvard that wants to fight and has the resources to do so. Does the RNA want to fight? It wouldn't be as public. This would all happen, you know, over shifters of brandy and oak paneled libraries across, you know, Glasgow and Edinburgh. But how is that going to play out? And it's going to be fascinating because those guys over there at the RNA do not want Trump to overshadow their tournament. They do not want him on the ground. And if if it comes to pass that Turnberry gets an open here sometime soon, that that will be an ultimate expression of soft power.
- [53:39]
Pablo Torre
Yeah. Alan Shipnock, I appreciate you speaking truth to soft power as it were. Even if occasionally you are also being called the worst liar and a pathetic human.
- [53:54]
Alan Shipnuck
I mean for Phil, it's almost a compliment. That's probably a badge of honor.
- [54:06]
Pablo Torre
This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time, Sam.