Tom Watson is the latest to want answers on the PGA Tour’s deal with Saudi

LOS ANGELES — Eight-time major champion Tom Watson wants answers on the PGA Tour’s new business partnership with Saudi backers of LIV Golf, asking in a letter Monday to Commissioner Jay Monahan if the deal was the only way to solve the tour’s financial hardship.

That was one of several questions posed by Watson in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press and was sent to Monahan, the PGA Tour board and “my fellow players.”

He said the questions were “compounded by the hypocrisy in disregarding the moral issue.”

On the day after Wyndham Clark became the latest major champion by winning the U.S. Open, focus shifted back to an issue that has consumed golf for the last three years. It took a stunning turn June 6 when the PGA Tour announced it had joined with Saudi Arabia’s national wealth fund and the European tour to put commercial businesses under one roof.

Monahan has referred to it as a “framework agreement” and he had few answers for players in a meeting two weeks ago at the Canadian Open. A Player Advisory Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday ahead of the Travelers Championship in Connecticut.

Monahan, who stepped away for a “medical situation” on Wednesday, is not expected to attend. Two of his top executives are in charge of the tour’s day-to-day operations.

The tour said in the June 6 announcement that Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund, would be chairman of the new company and Monahan would be the CEO. Two PGA Tour board members, Ed Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne, would join them on the executive committee.

The deal contains assurances the tour would keep a controlling voting interest in the new commercial entity regardless of how much the PIF contributes, according to a person who has seen the agreement.

The person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the deal has not been made public, said the agreement allows for a financial investment from PIF and pooling the three parties’ current and future golf-related investments. That would include LIV Golf.

The agreement said the new company’s board would have majority representation appointed by the PGA Tour, the person said. The PGA Tour would still have full authority on how it runs its competition.

Still missing are key details such as the future of LIV Golf. Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau have said they are planning for a 2024 season.

Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., suggested Sunday that congressional hearings could be held within weeks.

Blumenthal is chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” the subcommittee wants facts on what went into the deal and who was behind it and details on the structure and governance of the new company.

“There are very, very few details,” Blumenthal said. “But remember, what we have here is essentially a repressive, autocratic foreign government taking control over an iconic, cherished…