Pod Insights Pablo Torre Finds Out Why Golf Yalta Explains Donald Trump About this episode America's golfer-in-chief trades on exclusivity, but he still can't buy a green jacket. Are the Saudis using Donald Trump's obsession to disrupt even more than a super-league? Ahead of the U. S. Open, veteran golf reporter and author Alan Shipnuck takes Pablo behind the Shakespearean curtain.
• Read "LIV and Let Die" by Alan Shipnuck
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/LIV-and-Let-Die/Alan-Shipnuck/9781668020012
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript 9,326 words · 24 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.
0:26 Pablo Torre? This episode is brought to you by Apollo.io. A lot of the stories on this show start the same way. Something that looks pretty simple turns out to be a mess once you look under the hood. Well, it's no different in the sales world. Your team has a tool for finding prospects, a different tool for reaching out to them, and a third for keeping track of it all. On paper, that's a system. In practice, it's a salesperson spending the better part of the day copying names from one tab into another, and not much of it actually selling. Apollo.io is a platform that helps sales teams find the right buyers and reach out to them. It brings prospecting, outreach, and follow-up into one place instead of several separate tools. It's used by sales teams of all sizes,
1:10 Pablo Torre? from small businesses to larger organizations, and it's built for teams who want less manual busywork and more time with buyers. If your marketing and sales teams are trying to work from the same view of the customer, it's worth a look. Sign up for free at Apollo.io. That's Apollo.io. Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.
1:35 Speaker 02 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.
1:45 Pablo Torre? Right after this ad.
1:53 Pablo Torre? It's good to see you, man. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. I think of you often, though, which is why I have you on.
1:59 Speaker 03 I don't think that's true, but.
2:00 Pablo Torre? No, look, look, look. When Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia and golf and insane quotes come together, I shine the Alan Shipnuck 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.
2:36 Speaker 03 That's a good summary, 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 that driver length be capped. That was controversy in the golf world. People were up in arms about this. And then Live arrived and we got into the realm of money, 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 been great for the content business.
3:17 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 Shipnuck. 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 Shipnuck, my old colleague at Sports Illustrated, 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.
3:57 Pablo Torre? Because Alan, 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 Live.
4:11 Pablo Torre? 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.
4:30 Speaker 04 We return now to a story that has been in the headlines all week. The disappearance of a Saudi Arabian journalist in Istanbul, Turkey. According to reports, it is suspected that he was murdered, literally cut in pieces, and smuggled out of Turkey by Saudi security forces.
4:47 Speaker 03 This goes back, really, to the mid-2000s 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. 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.
5:32 Speaker 03 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.
6:06 Speaker 05 The World Golf Hall of Famer told journalist Alan Shipnuck, the author of an upcoming unauthorized biography of Mickelson, that he would support the new league even though the Saudis are scary to get involved with. "We know they killed Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates. I'm not sure I even want it to succeed, but just the idea of it is allowing us to get things done with the PGA Tour."
6:38 Speaker 03 It was raw and it was honest.
6:42 Speaker 03 It captured the moment where everyone 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 things started to accelerate and get messier.
6:57 Pablo Torre? Phil Mickelson went on to say another quote, I'll recite this one too. "Allen is the worst liar and a pathetic human."
7:05 Speaker 03 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 the PGA Tour will never admit that. So, some of the players who went over there 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, who 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.
8:09 Pablo Torre? So, we're gonna get to America's golfer in chief in just a bit here. And Alan Shipnuck, 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 this Saudi-backed league that we're here talking about today did trigger a cold civil war.
8:32 Pablo Torre? Tonight, the PGA Tour making a striking announcement, suspending players competing in the Live Golf Invitational Series.
8:39 Speaker 02 It's been an unfortunate week that was created by some unfortunate decisions.
8:44 Speaker 06 I'm surprised at a lot of these guys because they say one thing and then they do another. It's pretty duplicitous on their part to say one thing and then do another thing.
8:54 Speaker 07 The players who have chosen to go to Live and to play there, I disagree with it.
9:05 Speaker 03 It's fractured the sport in a way that's unimaginable. Like, if the AFC and the NFC never competed against each other, like, how weird would that be? If half of the stars in the NBA were suddenly playing on the G League, like, it just... 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.
9:31 Pablo Torre? And that rhetoric, as levied by the Live 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.
9:46 Speaker 05 I don't condone human rights violations at all.
9:48 Speaker 08 It's anywhere in the world you wouldn't play. If Vladimir Putin had a tournament, would you play there? A speculation. I'm not even going to comment on speculation.
9:59 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 Live and the PGA got back together in the same room at the White House.
10:20 Speaker 09 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-Rumayyan, all to discuss the reunification of the professional game.
10:36 Speaker 03 After Trump gets re-elected, you know, six months ago, one of his first acts as president-elect is to bring them together 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.
11:03 Speaker 09 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."
11:19 Speaker 03 I have no doubt that Donald Trump cares more about the state of professional golf than he does about Gaza or Ukraine.
11:26 Pablo Torre? No question.
11:27 Speaker 03 The amount of space this is taking up in his brain is absolutely frightening.
11:31 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 US 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 got to understand what Donald Trump was like before.
12:08 Speaker 03 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 course in Florida that he presided over. And everyone in golf knew Donald Trump as just kind of this fun-loving, golfy dude. And no one imagined that he would become the President of the United States and that he would get mixed up in all of this. And to understand it, you know, he's an outer-borough driver. You know, this is Donnie from Queens. And being accepted by society in New York was one of the driving forces in his life. And golf was part of that. Golf course memberships at a certain
12:53 Speaker 03 station in life are the most coveted thing there is. Because every rich dude can buy a plane, they can buy a Ferrari, but to get into Augusta National, to get into Pine Valley, to Shinnecock, to Marion...
13:07 Speaker 03 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 getting any of the good ones. He had to create his own. And that is the entry point for Donald Trump into golf.
13:39 Pablo Torre? It'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.
14:08 Speaker 03 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 clubs all over the place. But when he gets down into the impact zone, it's, it's, his technique is beautiful. And it's grating 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 club head speed and there's no substitute for that. And when, when you watch those clips of Joe Biden, there was an absence of club head speed.
14:45 Pablo Torre? I think that's fair. I think that is objectively fair.
14:48 Speaker 03 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 bull. 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, and he's a showman, you know? I watched him in pro am's playing with some of the best players in the world. And the crowds out there would scream his name and he tends to, he tends to hit a good shot. When the crowd gets large and he's got a putt that matters, he tends to make it. He's just, he's just good at golf.
15:20 Pablo Torre? There is a fig jam dynamic. To Trump, much like the man that you quoted just then, a "fuck, I'm good, just ask me" aspect to his whole, I mean, he might have been the most infamous originator of that philosophy, actually.
15:34 Speaker 03 Trump's driving his golf cart up onto the tee boxes and the putting greens.
15:39 Pablo Torre? This is important. Donald Trump drives the cart.
15:42 Speaker 03 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 the 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, uh, he's all over the place. He's got a little bit like Cruella de Vil out there in the golf cart.
16:02 Pablo Torre? A bit of a metaphor eating itself at this point, you know?
16:07 Speaker 03 Yeah.
16:08 Speaker 10 Trump is enraging many people with his remarks about Mexican immigrants. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some...
16:18 Speaker 03 I mean, you go back to when Trump first ran for president and 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 wasn't 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 biggest, most glittering, most prestigious tournaments. And when the PGA Championship was awarded to Trump Bedminster, that was the end of like a 15-year quest, that Trump had tried to charm and schmooze every official at every governing body. And it was a huge deal for him.
17:02 Speaker 03 And after January 6th, in a rare showing of backbone for the golf world, the PGA of America pulled that tournament.
17:09 Speaker 11 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 riot would damage its brand.
17:22 Speaker 03 So Trump lost this crown jewel event that he'd been lusting after for literal decades.
17:28 Pablo Torre? Yeah, his club was kicked out of the club.
17:31 Speaker 03 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 hosted some tremendous British Opens, famously the Duel in the Sun, Nicholas and Watson in 77, has this rich history. It's the prettiest of all the open venues, right on the ocean. And the Tweety 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, every, every big 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, these, these big time tournaments, and they've all been taken away.
18:16 Speaker 03 But now here comes Live 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 eighties. He bought his first yacht from, from a Saudi national. You know, the ultimate compliment that Donald Trump has ever paid anyone is when he said about the Saudis, "They pay cash." That's the highest compliment in his universe.
18:41 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 Shipnuck. 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 Live Golf in late 2021. And Live's very first event was in 2022, in the UK, which was especially memorable, as it turns out, for today's guest. Because Alan Shipnuck 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
19:22 Pablo Torre? song 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.
19:42 Speaker 03 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.
20:01 Pablo Torre? This video, obtained by CNN, shows how Live Golf will be operating their business. Behind Shipnuck, watching all of this go down, that would be the CEO of Live Golf, The Shark, Greg Norman.
20:16 Speaker 03 His face is twisted to this scally, looks like the Grim Reaper. I mean, that's what makes the picture so funny is just the expression on his face. So good. And I didn't see him, he was directly behind me. And so, that was incredible. And then like, you couldn't even make this up. Just then, he texts me, he says, "I had no idea," you know. And I was like, "This motherfucker." Like, okay.
20:39 Speaker 03 I just, it was so insane. So that's when I screenshotted it and I put it on Twitter and then it kind of blew up.
20:48 Speaker 03 So now Live Golf launches, and this is, this is the on-ramp 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 of the United States to host these golf tournaments. It's an unprecedented alignment of foreign policy and private business interests. So Trump starts hosting these Live events and there becomes this overlap with the Live fans are now,
21:33 Speaker 03 they now have this MAGA element and sort of this anti-establishment, anti-elite. And, you know, it was commonly known as LiveBots, 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, Live hires Ari Fleischer to help with their PR.
22:01 Pablo Torre? Former White House under George Bush, yeah, PR guy, basically a flack, now repurposed for this.
22:08 Speaker 03 Yes, but Ari Fleischer was in charge of the White House communications on 9/11. He was in some ways the face of the American response.
22:17 Pablo Torre? Yeah, and for those who didn't read the 9/11 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 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
22:59 Pablo Torre? who had died in one of America's foremost modern tragedies.
23:03 Speaker 03 Well, yeah, and some of the surviving family members protested outside the gates. You know, they made their presence felt.
23:10 Speaker 12 And 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.
23:28 Speaker 03 It's important to understand, the 9/11 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 at the time to do that. So, the Saudi Arabian government has always taken the stance that we were exonerated by the 9/11 Commission, but that's not true. The 9/11 Commission said, "There appear to be some links. We have some tangential evidence of individuals." And it's very much hairsplitting to say, "They were individuals in the government, but there was no government collusion." It's like, "Nah, okay, maybe."
24:08 Pablo Torre? Well, even more to the point.
24:09 Speaker 03 It's a very subtle thing.
24:11 Pablo Torre? Well, and even more to the point, no less than Jay Monahan, head of the PGA, made the connection.
24:17 Speaker 02 As it relates to the families of 9/11, I have two families that are close to me, the 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?
24:40 Speaker 03 You know, if live golf was funded by Australian money or English money or some other foreign source, it would not be nearly as controversial. But because it's Saudi, the uneasiness with the power and the tentacles that the Saudi economy has throughout the entire globe, that's added a whole element to this.
25:09 Pablo Torre? This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases like groceries, or merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.
25:42 Speaker 00 With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.
26:13 Pablo Torre? Look, 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 and 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,
26:58 Pablo Torre? 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."
27:10 Pablo Torre? 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.
27:18 Speaker 03 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's a 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 him he owes us one.
28:03 Speaker 03 And that got cashed in with the investment in Kushner, the investment through Live Golf. You know, a Lannister always pays his debts. And MBS's favorite TV show is Game of Thrones. And, um, you know, there was very much like, okay, you saved my bacon. How can I help?
28:19 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.
28:24 Speaker 03 So what you have to understand is the Saudis are always playing the long game here. And the guy who's overseeing Live Golf, who's kind of the patriarch, is, is one of MBS's closest advisors. His Excellency Yashir Al-Rumayyan. It's a great title. And he sees golf as a way to open up Saudi society and to teach people, um, how to come together. And he's a belie-, he's a true believer. He's like Norman in that regard. And that's why, 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 sheik down where, where MBS locked up a lot of the, the, the leading members of Saudi society. They had to transfer a hundred billion dollars back to the state.
29:07 Speaker 03 And it was Al-Rumayyan 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 a head 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, the state oil company that's the most profitable company in the world.
29:33 Speaker 13 Big thing in golf and we're gonna enjoy it. That's why I'm here. I'm gonna play the pro-am and I'm gonna have a lot of, um, hopefully fun.
29:42 Speaker 03 But he does have this very pure love of the sport. And in some ways, Live Golf is like fantasy camp for Yassir. It's a business that's losing tons of money, but he gets to play in the pro-am's with Phil, with Dustin Johnson, with Brooks Koepka. You've never seen anyone happier than Yassir Alramayan 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, 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.
30:13 Pablo Torre? It's just funny. It's 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 fucking love golf. That is not in dispute by anybody. They actually love the sport.
30:32 Speaker 03 And so you have, um, Yassir is, is the patriarch of Live Golf. And, and his counterpart, the commissioner of the PGA Tour is Jay Monahan.
30:44 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 Live to the PGA, right? Dozens of citations of monopolistic behavior in lawsuits. They gather on CNBC in between Trump administrations, I believe we are, uh, at this point in the timeline. And what happens there at this scene?
31:13 Speaker 03 It's one of the most shocking moments in the history of professional golf.
31:16 Speaker 14 Just this picture alone is going to surprise a lot of people. Seeing the two of you together, smiling. Um, given especially what has been hostility between Live 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?
31:34 Speaker 03 We're now about 10 months into the Live Golf era. You know, it's launched in, in the summer of 22. And as you know, the PGA Tour and Live are suing each other. The Justice Department 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 Yassir pop on CNBC with no warning to anybody, including all the top players
32:19 Speaker 03 who have put 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.
32:32 Speaker 02 Well, listen, I think today is 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 Yassir 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.
33:12 Speaker 03 It was very unsteadying, very unsettling. Like, what have we been fighting for? You know, the Rory McIlroy's of the world had made this intensely personal and they felt like they were defending the honor of the PGA Tour and the Stars in Stripes. And now it's all of a sudden, you know, money wins, we're all pals, it's gonna be okay. And it was just an all-time thunderbolt.
33:37 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, Lena 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 Live Golf in the first place, in which PGA was acting monopolistically, but now a merger between the two feels almost
34:22 Pablo Torre? farcical. Isn't that even a bigger monopoly?
34:25 Speaker 15 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 concern about how this would 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.
34:57 Pablo Torre? But this merger, you should know, has not happened yet, although the clock continues to tick.
35:06 Speaker 03 There's just been this protracted negotiations, there's been 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 sic the Justice Department on his friends in the golf world.
35:23 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.
35:40 Speaker 03 One of the pieces that moved on the chessboard 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 others, 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 Percy'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 Yassir in Saudi Arabia. But what is in it for John Henry?
36:25 Speaker 03 Because no one understands how they're going to get this money back. Well, the PGA Tour has been a test balloon for the Saudis. Can they come into the American sports landscape? Because they bought Newcastle United, a big football team in Europe. They've hosted F1, they've hosted tennis, all kinds of other events.
36:45 Pablo Torre? And there are rumors of every, like basketball leagues, I mean, just like competitors to the NBA. Live golf versions of every sport has been basically bandied about at this point.
36:57 Speaker 03 But if this deal can get consummated and Yassir 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 Yassir'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, informed conjecture. But there's just a lot of pieces here that transcend this little tiny boutique sport of golf that no one really cares about.
37:42 Speaker 03 And one of the most delicious things that came out, there was these Senate hearings.
37:47 Speaker 16 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.
38:04 Speaker 03 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 has given over a billion dollars of charitable money back into communities? It's a very fraught question.
38:28 Speaker 16 Athletes like the PGA Tour.
38:31 Speaker 16 Golf players are role models. They are ambassadors of our values and the institutions that concern us today are vital to our national interests.
38:45 Speaker 03 And in these documents, you know, Yassir had basically hired some American consultants to game plan this whole thing. And one of the things that they speculated on was that Yassir could become a member of Augusta National. He could get a green jacket. 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 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 aggregate of these Senate documents, like
39:30 Speaker 03 it was kind of the ultimate endgame. Like, why has the PIF poured $5 billion into live golf with no hopes of ever getting it back? It is a sinkhole of money. But, you know, it's like the hot dogs at Costco. It's a loss leader. Like, if they can create these relationships, if they can go to the Masters and be in the rooms, you can get a lot more than $5 billion of business.
39:52 Pablo Torre? There is the notion of when you are the most powerful people in the world, when you are rich and you're in 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.
40:11 Speaker 03 It's a green jacket. That is the ultimate status symbol for the ruling class. More than anything, everyone's got a plane, everyone's got a boat, everyone has a trophy wife, who cares? It's the green jacket. That is it.
40:36 Speaker 17 Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
40:51 Speaker 18 People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
41:02 Speaker 17 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.
41:07 Speaker 19 One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.
41:13 Speaker 17 So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.
41:33 Speaker 00 With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.
41:57 Speaker 20 Whoop. Sleep better, train smarter, recover faster, and feel healthier. Understand and optimize your sleep. Get coaching and insights for every age, stage, and cycle. Track over 140 habits. Get a 360 view of your training and workouts. Never miss a second of that with a wireless and waterproof charger. Expect all new features, all the time.
42:35 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 clearer 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.
43:06 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's well said. And, you know, the sports washing has 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 Live 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 9/11 family. And it was this drumbeat 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 washing is that it works. At some level, you just accept like, hey,
43:51 Speaker 03 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 washing. 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're invading Crimea, you know, while, while China hosted the Olympics and they're, they're building actual concentration camps, like sports washing has been part of the playbook forever. Sports washing 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 Live.
44:24 Pablo Torre? What do the players want in this at this point, Alan? To, to ask about them now towards the end here? Like, how do they factor into any of this?
44:33 Speaker 03 Well, 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 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.
45:06 Pablo Torre? Well, he was there, right? Well, Tiger was, you know, we talk about Yazeer and Jay from Liv and the PGA gathering at the White House as Trump is brokering, you know, golf Yalta. Tiger's right there, isn't he? Isn't Tiger on the grounds as well?
45:24 Speaker 03 He is because Tiger 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.
45:33 Speaker 21 But let me ask you, is there anybody like our Tiger? How are you? He's great. Would you want to just say a couple of words, Tiger? He doesn't. He's much more comfortable. Tiger, Tiger.
45:52 Speaker 22 Hey, it's an honor to be here. It's an honor to be here with you, Mr. President, and to be honored to be here with all of you. Thank you so much.
46:00 Speaker 03 But you know, the players who went to Liv, some of them may have been pure of heart and felt like this is a chance to modernize the sport. It certainly, you know, there's a lot of jokes about the Liv tournaments with the shotgun starts and the music in the background and their 54 holes instead of 72. But there's no doubt they're attracting a younger demographic and that's needed for golf to sustain itself.
46:24 Pablo Torre? You might even call it a once in a lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.
46:30 Speaker 03 Yeah, you could. So Liv 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, Liv, Virginia, which is happening, you know, here in June, and I'm sure the president will make a cameo there. You know you're gonna 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 live ideas. So, you know, the live proponents would say, "We've helped push golf forward." And there's some truth to that.
47:14 Speaker 03 The live streaming choices are vastly superior to the tours. The social media is way better. So, will they be welcomed back into the fold? These live defectors, that's gonna take time to sort out. But if a deal gets consummated, if everyone, you know, is posing on in the Rose Garden together with the President of the United States, that'll go a long way towards, I think, building bridges to reuniting the sport and to bringing the live guys back into the fold. And so, if that does blow up and live 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 over there.
47:52 Pablo Torre? As Tiger Woods, by the way, a brief update, is literally dating Donald Trump Jr.'s ex-wife.
48:00 Speaker 23 What is your thought about Tiger Woods now becoming part of the broader Trump family?
48:06 Speaker 21 Well, I love Tiger and I love Vanessa. And Tiger actually called me a few months ago and he, and you'd 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. I just let them both be happy."
48:31 Pablo Torre? I just like it's-
48:33 Speaker 03 Another plot twist.
48:34 Pablo Torre? Just a, just a plot twist.
48:36 Speaker 03 It's been a journey, you know, this, we're now, we're now, it's basically three years to the day since, since live 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 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 force.
49:14 Pablo Torre? 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's 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.
49:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, so with Trump's entry into politics, you know, 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 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
50:31 Speaker 03 is clearly working. You know, this is the first real domino to fall.
50:36 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.
51:10 Pablo Torre? 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 US, one of them opened during his first administration in Dubai. And the discussion now around Trump Aberdeen, the new host of the newly rebranded DP World Tour, is extremely familiar.
51:43 Speaker 03 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, you know, behind the scenes, you see it with law firms, you see it with corporations, you see it with political 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.
52:17 Pablo Torre? And in 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?
52:25 Speaker 03 Yeah, a soft landing 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.
52:46 Pablo Torre? And in terms of that ultimate and most exclusive prize, Donald Trump, finally hosting his first major championship, the President of the United States does have a soft target for his soft power.
53:03 Speaker 03 The RNA, which runs the British Open, they are the ultra-traditionalists in the golf world, as you can imagine. And they have not tried to hide their disdain for Donald Trump. And they will cut off their nose to spite their face and not go back to Turnberry, which is such a wonderful venue, just to prove their point. Like, they've made that so clear. But now, reporting's starting to bubble out. You know, the Scottish government trying to get in the good graces of the Trump administration, they're trying to broker an 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 opens work.
53:47 Speaker 03 And so, will they cave? 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 grounds. And if it comes to pass that Turnberry gets an open here sometime soon, that will be an ultimate expression of soft power.
54:31 Pablo Torre? Yeah. Alan Shipnuck, 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.
54:46 Speaker 03 I mean, for Phil, it's almost a compliment. That's probably a badge of honor.
54:58 Pablo Torre? This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.
55:04 Pablo Torre? And I'll talk to you next time.
55:25 Speaker 00 With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.
Previous The Last Bromance: How Wrestling Corrupted the NBA Finals Next We Found the Secret Album That the NBA's Best Executive Doesn't Want You to Hear Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated