As Senate digs in, PGA Tour’s star dealmaker slides into spotlight

WASHINGTON — On a picturesque Tuesday morning within the coronary heart of the nation’s capital, Jimmy Dunne, a 65-year-old single-digit handicap, certainly would have moderately been on a primary tee someplace, maybe up the highway at Congressional Country Club, or a bit additional north at Burning Tree, or at any of the opposite clubby citadels on this golf-rich area. Instead, Dunne was going through a special type of problem, one of many weightiest of his storied profession: making an attempt to persuade a subcommittee of U.S. senators that the PGA Tour’s framework settlement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — which funds LIV Golf — is a deal, within the easiest phrases, that should get executed.

Dunne, as you probably know by now when you’ve been following the PGA Tour-LIV saga even casually, is a Wall Street legend, mergers-and-acquisitions whiz and Augusta National and Seminole member who joined the Tour’s coverage board in January — and who has wasted little time in that capability flexing his negotiating muscle. The proposed partnership between the Tour and the PIF that got here to gentle on June 6 — by way of which the PIF may find yourself investing north of a billion {dollars} into the Tour — largely was brokered by covert conferences between Dunne and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan.    

Al-Rumayyan declined to attend the listening to with the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, citing a scheduling battle — as did LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman; extra on him later — so it was left to Dunne and Ron Price, the Tour’s chief working officer, to elucidate the Tour’s reasoning for wanting to affix forces with Saudi Arabia’s $700 billion (give or take) sovereign wealth fund.

Price, who bears a passing resemblance to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, is aware of a factor or two about managing cash. He’s a former Ernst & Young accomplice who joined the Tour in 1994 as a VP of finance and administration earlier than dutifully working his approach into his present put up as commissioner Jay Monahan’s righthand man; he’s shrewd and as properly versed within the Tour’s dealings and insurance policies as anybody in Ponte Vedra. But a majority of the questions from the panel Tuesday appeared to fall on the dealmaker who did what only a matter of weeks in the past most thought inconceivable: unify the PGA Tour with its Saudi rivals. The proceedings weren’t fairly the Jimmy Dunne Show, however at instances they did veer that approach. Dunne has that have an effect on on folks; he’s personable, disarming, pragmatic. Way extra Jimmy than James.

There’s a cause he was requested to provide the graduation speech at his beloved alma mater, Notre Dame, a few years in the past. People like to listen to him discuss.

“You all are used to getting As,” Dunne advised the gang of graduates that day. “You’re Notre Dame students. You’re just exceptional. [But] perfect kind of leaves the building when you leave Notre Dame and nothing is perfect, okay. It’s a beautiful, messy, wonderful thing, but it’s not perfect.” 

Senate hearings are like tee instances — you’d finest be punctual. At exactly 10 a.m. native time, Price, in a navy-blue go well with and matching tie, and, Dunne, in a grey go well with with a pinkish tie that hung properly under his belt, entered Room SH-216 within the Hart Senate Office Building, the identical house the place Supreme Court confirmations are performed. The inquisition was initially slated to be in a smaller house, however as curiosity from media and different events swelled the listening to was moved to a bigger enviornment.

Good factor. Not solely had been all 130-plus seats stuffed however so too was many of the standing-room-only house within the again. Capitol Hill interns with notebooks craned their necks for a view. About 10 reporters — WaPo, Slate, the Dallas Morning News — sat shoulder-to-shoulder round a folding desk in opposition to the wall, laptops out, tweets flying, whereas a dozen or so photographers stood close to the entrance of the room, fingers on their triggers. In the third of about 10 rows of fold-up seats sat a handful of representatives from the Sept. 11 survivors’ group, 9/11 Justice, unmissable of their purple caps. Like the scene at a crowded inexperienced or tee field, sight traces had been sparse.

Leading the listening to on the dais in entrance of the room was Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat from Connecticut, who vehemently opposes the deal, and Sen. Ron Johnson, Republican from Wisconsin, who additionally has voiced considerations in regards to the pact however mentioned he understands why it’s vital. Among the opposite senators who questioned Dunne and Price — however performed a much less outstanding position within the listening to — had been longtime Saudi critic, Rand Paul (R-Ky.); Roger Marshall (R-Kans.); and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).     

Blumenthal wasted little time in his opening remarks chopping to what he sees because the chase. “Today’s hearing is about much more than the game of golf,” he mentioned. “It’s about how a brutal, repressive regime can buy influence — indeed even take over a cherished American institution — to cleanse its public image.”

Blumenthal additionally pressed Price and Dunne on why the Tour hasn’t explored different much less controversial avenues for funding.

“We considered that, Senator,” Price mentioned. “But had we gone down that path we would still be fighting the very expensive and disruptive litigation.”

“And if you had won, you would have prevailed,” Blumenthal mentioned.

“That was far from a certainty,” Price mentioned. “And LIV Golf would have continued to recruit our players and put our Tour in jeopardy, and they could have become the leader of professional golf and operated it for the benefit for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

Toward the top of the continuing, Blumenthal mentioned he was mystified by the intense secrecy of the deal and why even the Tour’s personal board wasn’t conscious of the talks that had been underway. Did Dunne not belief the board? Certainly not, Dunne mentioned, he was too new on the job to move that type of judgement.

Blumenthal pushed.

“The bed was on fire when you got into it,” he mentioned.

“No, LIV put us on fire,” Dunne mentioned. “LIV put us into an incredibly difficult position. LIV was a constant, every day, who’s going to go? It was very disruptive.”

For many golf followers, the actual catnip, although, wasn’t within the verbal volleys between the senators and their topics however within the paperwork that the subcommittee launched simply earlier than the listening to, which included a bounty of beforehand undisclosed particulars in regards to the PGA Tour-PIF negotiations. Among the revelations: the 2 sides had mentioned Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy probably taking possession of LIV groups and collaborating in LIV occasions; LIV persevering with to function as an unbiased tour however solely throughout the fall; Al-Rumayyan scoring memberships at Augusta National and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews; and, the newsiest word, Norman’s ouster from LIV.

Few of those juicy nuggets surfaced throughout the listening to aside from Price confirming Norman’s tenuous standing. “If we reach a definitive agreement, we will not have a place for that type of position,” Price mentioned of Norman’s position.

The senators additionally didn’t pry about former AT&T chief Randall Stephenson, who mysteriously resigned from the Tour coverage board final week, saying that “the construct currently being negotiated by management is not one that I can objectively evaluate or in good conscience support.”

As Blumenthal jabbed at Price and Dunne, Johnson was much more conciliatory, at one level discussing Wyndham Clark’s U.S. Open win with Dunne as two golf buddies would possibly within the nineteenth gap. (“He was awesome!” Dunne mentioned.) It wasn’t the one golf chatter. Sen. Marshall of Kansas expended a second of his allotted time to shoutout his fellow Kansan, four-time PGA Tour winner Gary Woodland.

Johnson went so far as to say that the federal government shouldn’t be meddling in Tour-PIF issues — an odd factor to proclaim, given he, partly, known as the listening to. “Negotiations are often delicate, mostly private, and I fear Congress’s getting involved at this stage could have negative consequences,” he mentioned. Paul, who lobbied in 2021 to cease the U.S. from promoting arms to Saudi Arabia, aired comparable considerations, saying, “I see a certain illegitimacy to the proceedings today.”

Sen. Hawley of Missouri was much less within the Tour’s dealings with Saudi Arabia than he was with the enterprise the Tour has performed in China, the place as not too long ago as 2019 it had a 20-year settlement to conduct occasions beneath the banner of PGA Tour China. In a few of the most pointed questioning of the day, Hawley requested Price why the Tour would accomplice with a nation that “treats its own people as slaves,” a reference to the labor camps the place the Chinese authorities has been accused by the United Nations of detaining as much as 1,000,000 Uyghurs. Price didn’t provide a lot in a approach of a response aside from to say that the deal had been terminated.

The listening to wasn’t all arduous ball. When a senator requested Dunne about his love for the sport, Dunne — who is also on the membership rolls at Pine Valley and Shinnecock Hills — mentioned he sees golf as a car for constructing relationships, including “it’s hard to hate someone you play golf with.” Notably, a few of Dunne’s negotiations with Al-Rumayyan had been performed on a London golf course. “I think golf is a force of good,” he mentioned.

Dunne was on a golf course on the morning of Sept 11, 2001, making an attempt to qualify for the U.S. Mid-Amateur. The sport probably saved his life, he has mentioned, given his funding agency’s workplace was on the 104th flooring of the South Tower. Sixty-six of his colleagues and associates died that day. That 15 of the hijackers had been Saudi residents has made the Tour’s dealings with the PIF much more fraught.

How does Dunne, he was requested, reconcile that inconvenient reality?

“Senator, I will say now, what I said on September 12, of ’01, what I said to my children growing up,” Dunne mentioned. “Anyone remotely concerned, anybody tangentially concerned, anybody who profited, we should always pursue them with excessive prejudice, to the complete extent, to the whole capability.

“If someone does a crime, you go after them. For this crime, it’s death.”

Dunne, as he’s mentioned earlier than, burdened that his conscience is evident.

“I honestly believe that our government with both President Bush, President Obama, our military and our brilliant, brilliant (Navy) Seals, did their job and anyone that is involved with that has answered justice,” he mentioned.

Not everybody agrees with that evaluation. After the almost three-hour listening to adjourned, Sean Passananti loitered within the foyer outdoors the listening to room. He was sporting a blue cap emblazoned with “9/11 Justice,” a corporation he has rallied behind to honor and search retribution for his father, Horace, who died within the North Tower.   

Passananti advised me that he and the opposite members of his group haven’t any drawback with Saudi Arabia investing in golf or every other sport or enterprise for that matter. Their situation is with the Saudi Arabian authorities not taking accountability for “enabling the 9/11 attacks,” and his group sees “the PIF and the Saudi government as one in the same.”

He mentioned his group additionally takes no explicit situation with Dunne, who has drawn a lot reward for establishing a basis to cowl the school tuition prices for the youngsters — 69 in all — of his fallen colleagues.  

“He’s legendary in the 9/11 community, and I don’t think there’s a better person than him who could handle this deal,” Passananti mentioned. “We’re on the same side. It’s a very complicated issue. I think our fight is our fight, and he’s doing what he can do.”

Dunne didn’t grasp round to talk with reporters. At the conclusion of the listening to, he disappeared by way of a door at the back of the room. He had mentioned his piece. Time to get again to his lovely, messy, fantastic, imperfect life.  

Alan Bastable

Golf.com Editor

As GOLF.com’s government editor, Bastable is liable for the editorial route and voice of one of many sport’s most revered and extremely trafficked information and repair websites. He wears many hats — enhancing, writing, ideating, creating, daydreaming of someday breaking 80 — and feels privileged to work with such an insanely gifted and hardworking group of writers, editors and producers. Before grabbing the reins at GOLF.com, he was the options editor at GOLF Magazine. A graduate of the University of Richmond and the Columbia School of Journalism, he lives in New Jersey together with his spouse and foursome of children.