When on June 6 the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund — which backs LIV Golf — introduced some particulars of their proposed partnership, shock and confusion reigned within the golf world and past. Among the many many issues and panicky leaps to conclusion: Had been the Saudis taking up males’s skilled golf? Would PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan turn out to be Tour commissioner Jay Monahan’s boss? Would LIV dissolve? Or would the LIV mannequin come to the PGA Tour? And, maybe above all, why such an excessive about-face from the Tour, which for months had been entangled in a bitter feud — authorized and in any other case — with LIV’s energy brokers?

To golf followers, Tour watchdogs, even the gamers themselves, there have been way more questions in regards to the secretive deal than solutions.

And the Tour knew it.

That a lot got here to gentle Monday by the use of Ron Value, the Tour’s chief working officer, who in an op-ed printed by The Athletic, wrote:

“Because of the confidential nature of negotiations surrounding the framework settlement, a lot of the preliminary response has been adverse, coloured by misinformation or misunderstanding. That’s one thing we take full possession of and deeply remorse. Shifting ahead, we firmly consider that the extra the information are mentioned and understood, the additional our constituents can help a possible definitive settlement — if reached — and look ahead to the constructive and lasting influence on all ranges of our sport.”

The op-ed additionally lays out why Value believes the pact, ought to or not it’s accredited, will end in a “extremely favorable end result for the PGA Tour,” and presumably serves as a preview of the testimony Value and Tour coverage board member Jimmy Dunne — who Monahan has credited with brokering the proposed cope with Al-Rumayyan — will current on Tuesday on Capitol Hill, the place they’re each scheduled to subject questions from the U.S. Senate Everlasting Subcommittee on Investigations that’s probing the Tour-PIF accord.     

Monahan, who’s recovering from an undisclosed well being situation, won’t be in attendance, nor will Al-Rumayyan or LIV CEO Greg Norman, each of whom cited scheduling conflicts.

Main the listening to shall be Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the subcommittee’s chairman, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the subcommittee’s rating member. As Blumenthal detailed in a June 21 letter to Monahan, the intent of the session is to “study the deliberate settlement … the way forward for the PIF-funded LIV Golf, the dangers related to a overseas authorities’s funding in American cultural establishments, and the implications of this deliberate settlement on skilled golf in the US going ahead.”

Toothy questions all.

Added Johnson, in a press release, “I hope that this listening to and another position that Congress performs on this matter shall be constructive.”

Final week, in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Johnson mentioned that with regards to antitrust issues which were raised across the proposed deal, he believes the courts received’t stand in the way in which and as a substitute are prone to rule “in favor of sports activities competitors.” Johnson mentioned his main concern is with sustaining the “purity of the competitors” on the PGA Tour.

Value and Dunne will face inquiries throughout a spectrum of subjects on Tuesday. However they’ll most assuredly additionally come armed with their very own agenda. On the highest of that listing, if Value’s op-ed is any indication: tightening up the messaging across the specifics of the settlement — i.e., not solely what it’s but in addition simply as importantly what it isn’t.

“This isn’t a merger,” Value wrote within the op-ed. “The PGA Tour stays intact. The subsidiary — PGA Tour Enterprises — will embody PIF as a non-controlling, minority investor, as they’re in lots of different American companies.”

That little bit of nuance will take a while to shake from the media’s lexicon, if reporters and editors acknowledge it in any respect. A fast search Monday of reporting on the deal confirmed the phrase merger nonetheless in use by quite a lot of retailers, from CNN and NBC Information to Fortune and The Hill.

Value continued: “PGA Tour Enterprises shall be led by a board of administrators. Nearly all of that board shall be appointed by the PGA Tour and that entity shall be run by a CEO. That CEO shall be PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan. The PGA Tour’s controlling curiosity on that board of administrators will stay fixed going ahead, whatever the measurement of the PIF’s preliminary or any future incremental investments. The board of administrators may even have the power to say no any undesirable funding.

“For 2 years, the query has been, who would lead skilled golf ahead? The reply supplied by this work towards a definitive settlement is now clear: the PGA Tour.”

Readability is one thing for which golf followers and gamers alike have been craving. We’re not there but. However maybe Tuesday’s proceedings will get us one step nearer.  

Alan Bastable

Golf.com Editor

As GOLF.com’s govt editor, Bastable is chargeable for the editorial route and voice of one of many sport’s most revered and extremely trafficked information and repair websites. He wears many hats — modifying, writing, ideating, creating, daydreaming of at some point breaking 80 — and feels privileged to work with such an insanely proficient and hardworking group of writers, editors and producers. Earlier than grabbing the reins at GOLF.com, he was the options editor at GOLF Journal. A graduate of the College of Richmond and the Columbia College of Journalism, he lives in New Jersey together with his spouse and foursome of youngsters.