USA Today sports commentator Christine Brennan ripped The PGA Tour over its announced merger with LIV Golf Tuesday, saying LIV Golf “would have caved” if the PGA Tour “took a stand” against LIV players taking part in major tournaments.
Brennan ripped the PGA Tour after the tour announced it would be merging with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf and the DP World Tour on Tuesday in a deal that would place all three entities under a yet-to-be-named umbrella company, the PGA Tour announced. Brennan claimed that if the PGA Tour had excluded LIV Golf players from major tournaments, the LIV would have folded. (RELATED: FLASHBACK: Trump Predicted LIV-PGA Merger Last Year)
“If the Masters, U.S. Open, PGA Championship and the British Open, if they had looked at the LIV golfers a year ago and said, ‘no, you cannot play here’ … if they had done that then, took a stand — which golf never does — obviously, the sexism, the racism in golf haunts it to this day, just appalling sexism, and racism and misogyny for years, but if those guys had taken a stand, which is not in their nature to do that, if they had and said, ‘no Masters, no U.S. Open,’ I think LIV Golf would have caved,” Brennan told CNN host Kate Bolduan during a “CNN News Central” appearance.
WATCH:
The PGA issued suspensions to players who played in tournaments sponsored by LIV Golf in June 2022, including Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson. LIV Golf had offered Tiger Woods a deal of up to $800 million to join the league.
“Men’s golf in full panic over all the LIV-PGA Tour bickering turning off fans at a time when Tiger is done or nearly done, and Phil too,” Brennan tweeted on Tuesday. “TV ratings will never reach Tiger levels again. So the men who run golf caved to Saudi blood money. PGA Tour now in sports-washing business.”
She posted a link to a June 2022 column calling for golfers who played at events run by LIV Golf to be barred from the U.S. Open in a second tweet.
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