Inside the PGA Tour’s lobbying effort against Saudi-funded LIV Golf

Since last year, the PGA Tour has been speaking behind the scenes with White House officials and congressional lawmakers about its concerns with LIV Golf, a rival league funded by Saudi Arabia.

As plans for LIV Golf were coming together, the PGA Tour quietly started reaching out to the White House and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in the second quarter of 2021, according to lobbying disclosure reports and people familiar with the matter.

Since last year, the PGA Tour has paid $360,000 to the firm DLA Piper to lobby lawmakers on their behalf for multiple topics, including “Saudi Golf League proposals.”

The PGA Tour shelled out $120,000 in the second quarter of 2022, which spans from April to June 30, according to the most recent filing. Records show that’s the most the PGA Tour has spent on lobbying in a given time period since it spent the same amount in the first half of 2004 to seek federal appropriations and grants for a charity golf program for young people, according to a filing.

The tour lobbied President Joe Biden’s Executive Office as recently as the second quarter this year, the latest filing says.

Lobbying efforts last year prompted Biden advisors to propose a sit-down meeting between a PGA Tour representative and Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, to discuss the Saudi-financed golf league, according to one of the people with knowledge of the effort.

The PGA Tour declined to have the meeting because tour officials didn’t believe it would result in much of a course correction by the Saudis, this person said. This person declined to be named in order to speak freely about private conversations.

A White House spokesperson did not return a request for comment. Laura Neal, a spokeswoman for the PGA Tour, told CNBC in an email on Thursday “we are not going to comment on the specific meetings.”

The LIV Golf league, which reportedly saw another $2 billion round of Saudi funding this past spring, officially started competition last month in England and will continue next week at former President Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, N.J. LIV Golf is led by former PGA Tour star Greg Norman.

The league has secured contracts from some of the biggest American PGA Tour golfers, including Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson. Each reportedly signed contracts with LIV Golf worth well over $100 million.

Johnson and Mickelson are among the golfers who are suspended from the PGA Tour for participating in the LIV league. The Department of Justice is reportedly investigating whether the PGA Tour engaged in anticompetitive behavior.

U.S. officials have scrutinized the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for years, including after the murder…