The United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report Friday on its findings into the 2023 framework agreement between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

Shortly following the surprise proposed deal to end professional golf’s civil war, representatives for the tour and PIF were called before a Senate hearing in July of 2023 and had to provide all records and communications between the two entities. According to Senator Richard Blumenthal, the deal raised “concerns about the Saudi government’s role in influencing this effort and the risks posed by a foreign government entity assuming control over a cherished American institution.” The inquiry into PIF’s golf interest expanded into Saudi Arabia’s increasing commercial investments in the United States. While the PGA Tour sent COO Ron Price and former policy board member Jimmy Dunne to the hearing, PIF declined to participate.

Among the golf items in Friday’s report was the assertion that PIF only began talking with the tour after it became clear it PIF and its officials would have to testify about PIF’s business dealings.

“The Subcommittee’s inquiry revealed that the first significant back and forth about a potential agreement between the PIF and the PGA Tour began with a renewed push from a representative of the PIF to broker a deal on April 14, 2023, and that a key term of the initial Framework Agreement entered into by the PIF and the PGA Tour involved the dismissal, with prejudice, of pending litigation between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour,” the report stated. “On April 7, 2023, a judge in the Northern District of California had ruled in that litigation that the PIF and its Governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan, were subject to discovery and depositions by lawyers for the PGA Tour. This deposition would likely have revealed details of the PIF’s operations and Governor al-Rumayyan’s control over its commercial investments.”

One of the more overlooked aspects of the framework agreement stated that LIV Golf’s antitrust lawsuit against the tour and the tour’s countersuit would be dismissed within 10 days. Just as crucially, the provision stated that neither side could refile such lawsuits in the future.

This claim is part of PSI’s warning that “U.S. defenses are inadequate to protect against increasingly sophisticated foreign influence efforts by Saudi Arabia and other malign actors and exposed loopholes within the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) that allow foreign governments to escape accountability.”

“My PSI investigation is a call to action—supporting strong reforms for disclosure by foreign actors,” said Blumenthal. “Our report reveals how present laws may enable foreign influence without transparency. Very simply, our present defenses do not protect against increasingly sophisticated threats. While the Trump Administration rolls back deterrents against foreign influence and seeks investments from our adversaries, I am calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to immediately step up enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and support my Sovereign Wealth Fund Transparency Act.”

The news comes six weeks after President Donald Trump hosted representatives from the PGA Tour—including commissioner PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, Tiger Woods and Adam Scott—along with al-Rumayyan at the White House to discuss potential reunification in professional golf. However, the meeting did not produce a formalised agreement. Earlier this month, PIF, which serves as the financial backer to LIV Golf, maintained its offer to invest in the newly created for-profit PGA Tour Enterprises. However, the proposal came with the provision that LIV Golf, in some capacity, would continue in the future professional golf landscape, and that Al-Rumayyan would be co-chair of PGA Tour Enterprises.

Sources familiar with the matter have told Golf Digest that the tour has asserted it is not interested in a team golf element—a message that was delivered at the White House meeting. When the original framework agreement between the tour and PIF was announced on June 6, 2023, Al-Rumayyan was designated as the chairman of for-profit endeavor (called “NewCo” at the time), although the tour has shifted its position following the $1.5 billion investment from the Strategic Sports Group. Joe Gorder, a former head of Valero Energy, is chairman of the Enterprises board.

Main Image: David Cannon