Dt as we all know is an amoral money grubbing asshole but if this comes to pass it will be yet another new low in a history replete with lows.
MBS (aka Mr. Bone Saw), dt's and Jared Kushner's BFF (Best Friendly Financier) and mastermind of the horrific assassination of Jamal Khashoggi the Washington Post contributor, have been reported to be looking at a deal for the Saudis to use dt golf courses for their new golf tour in competition with the US PGA.
Former golfing great Greg Norman is heading up the Saudi league so naturally off he went seeking other golfers to participate in the new tour and he didn't need to go far to find another big golfer willing to have blood on his gloves all for money. Enter Phil Mickelson aka Lefty from the US. Mickelson has claimed that he and two other golfers, he declined to name (1 of which is allegedly Adam Scott), had hired lawyers to help draft up the agreement. Mickelson is mad at the US PGA over use of image likenesses and the lack of the top players being able to control the PGA. It is unclear if Mickelson also disapproved of the PGA taking away tournaments from dt.
Before anyone thinks these guys don't have any idea who they are dealing with here is a report on Mickelson's comments on the Saudis
"“They’re scary motherf—ers to get involved with,” Mickelson said. “They killed [Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights… They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”
Nothing, even associating with murderers will stop Mickelson in grubbing for more money.
According to NBC Sports Mickelson's all time money from golf tournaments is $95,000,000 and that does not include endorsements. With that much money you would think that Mickelson could well afford to find some moral backbone but of course we would all be wrong.
Apparently even with his excessive gambling, being caught up in an insider trading scandal, hiring the guy who helped parents fake their sports skills in order to gain entry to universities (although Mickelson claimed no fraud and was not charged regarding his daughter's admission) and complaining he shouldn't have to pay taxes in CA and therefore was moving, none of it was enough to stop Mickelson from going lower and making a deal with the Saudis knowing exactly who they are.
Enter dt
Not to be outdone the Saudis decided it was time to repay dt for all his sycophantic help by using his golf courses which have been losing money. The most important of these in the US is the Doral Country Club.
"But from 2015 to 2017, the club’s revenue fell from $92 million to $75 million — an 18 percent drop, according to company financial documents and Trump’s government disclosure forms. Operating income — the amount left over after expenses were paid — fell even faster, prompting Trump’s own tax consultant to tell Miami-Dade County officials in 2018 that the course had been “severely underperforming” competing clubs. Revenue suffered an additional 40 percent drop in 2020, when pandemic travel restrictions were in place for most of the year."
Many will recall that dt borrowed excessively in order to purchase Doral and at one point claimed after putting massive amounts into it that is would be ... oh never mind you know he was exaggerating and yes even lying. The note for Doral will be coming due soon.
The Washington Post is reporting this evening
"At least two of Trump’s courses in Bedminster, N.J., and Doral, Fla., could be named as sites for the nascent tour, according to the people familiar with the talks, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Officials from LIV Golf Investments, the apparatus funded by the Saudis to host the tour, have held conversations with the Trump Organization, these people said."
Snip
"Such a deal would also provide a measure of revenge for Trump against the PGA Tour, an organization that he courted for years but that later enraged him when politics came between them. While Trump campaigned in the summer of 2016, the PGA Tour announced it was yanking its elite World Golf Championship tournament from Doral and moving it to Mexico City. Trump also lost the PGA championship from his course in New Jersey last year, as the organization pulled its event days after the Jan. 6 insurrection by a pro-Trump mob at the U.S. Capitol."
Backlash for the Saudi tour
“I’m so sick of it,” McIlroy said on Wednesday, slipping in a dig about the “not-so-Super League.” He also referenced the wave of top pros who have declared their allegiance to the PGA Tour, a list which includes the three top-ranked players in the world, Rahm, Morikawa and Patrick Cantlay, plus Thomas, Spieth, McIlroy and others. “You’ve got the top players in the world who are saying ‘no,’ so that has to tell you something.”
I hope that at least some of these top players are refusing to participate because there is not enough money in the world to justify associating their name with that of a man and country that countenance torturing and sawing up the body of a man.
Regardless I think we can all acknowledge that dt will have no such problem.