On the primary Monday morning following a shock announcement that claimed to finish professional golf’s civil battle — an announcement during which the PGA Tour introduced a deliberate settlement with the Saudi Arabian Public Funding Fund — a U.S. Senator has opened a probe into the legality of such an settlement. 

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) issued letters to each Jay Monahan and Greg Norman, the respective commissioners of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, who each spent a lot of the final 18 months at odds. As of Tuesday morning final week, Monahan’s tour was now set to merge business pursuits with Norman’s tour and that of the DP World Tour, with funding from the Saudi PIF. Blumenthal is chairman of the U.S. Senate’s Everlasting Subcommittee on Investigations. 

Blumenthal spoke out initially concerning the deal a day later, issuing a press release that learn, “The PGA Tour has spent two years lambasting Saudi sports-washing and paying lip service the integrity of the game of golf, which is able to now be used unabashedly by the Kingdom to distract from its many crimes. The PGA Tour has positioned a value on human rights and betrayed the lengthy historical past of sports activities and athletes that advocate for social change and progress. I’ll hold an in depth eye on the construction of this deal and its implications.”

This week Blumenthal has already taken it a step additional, requesting paperwork to be produced from either side within the subsequent two weeks to investigate the legality of such a partnership. 

“Whereas few particulars concerning the settlement are identified, PIF’s function as an arm of the Saudi authorities and PGA Tour’s sudden and drastic reversal of place regarding LIV Golf increase critical questions concerning the explanations for and phrases behind the introduced settlement,” Blumenthal wrote to each. 

“PGA Tour’s settlement with PIF concerning LIV Golf raises issues concerning the Saudi authorities’s function in influencing this effort and the dangers posed by a international authorities entity assuming management over a cherished American establishment,” he later continued. “PIF has introduced that it intends to make use of investments in sports activities to additional the Saudi authorities’s strategic targets.”

Every request from Blumenthal outlines a deadline of June 26, and asks for any and all paperwork and communications that would contain the settlement, LIV Golf, the PGA Tour, and of their subsidiaries and the PIF. That features organizational charts of every tour in addition to any proposed org. charts of the brand new, for-profit entity. It additionally contains any messaging or paperwork on behalf of the PGA Tour concerning its intention to stay a tax-exempt non-profit whereas creating the separate, for-profit firm.

Final week’s announcement got here with huge shock to PGA Tour gamers and in addition skepticism from numerous corners of the antitrust world that such a deal can be authorized. 

For starters, LIV Golf and the PGA Tour had been embroiled in an antitrust lawsuit and in addition a tortious interference countersuit, each of which had been shifting slowly by discovery. The “framework settlement”, because it has been mentioned by Monahan, dropped all pending litigation between the excursions. Is it authorized for a model accused of being a monopoly to out of the blue merge enterprise pursuits with its most important competitors? That’s definitely among the many questions Blumenthal’s subcommittee shall be investigating.