Golf merger shows Saudis now the biggest players in global sport

Well so much for the moral high ground. So much for the PGA Tour and many of its players spending the better part of the last year taking a stand against LIV Golf, a breakaway tour funded by Saudi Arabian oil money.

It was less than a year ago that PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan was reminding people about Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11, desperate to stem the exodus of star players being lured by massive paydays to the big bad LIV tour.

"I have two families that are close to me that lost loved ones," Monahan said at the time. "My heart goes out to them, and I would ask that any player that has left, or that would ever consider leaving, have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?"

Monahan suspended more than 30 PGA Tour members who chose to join LIV, including some of the sport's biggest stars and past major champions like Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson.

Many of the PGA's biggest names rallied around Monahan, in what became a perceived battle of good versus evil, one that some framed as one of America's old sports institutions against an oil-drenched nation trying to gloss over its deplorable human rights record through sport, often referred to as "sportswashing."

Players rallied around Monahan and embraced the fight, nobody more so than Rory McIlroy, who railed constantly against the nascent tour and what it was doing to the game.

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Well, it turns out that behind what many thought was a nasty and acrimonious divorce, the couple was actually secretly in counselling.

Fast forward to this week and there was a smiling Monahan sitting side by side with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is financing LIV Golf.

The two announced that LIV and the PGA Tour would unify and form a yet to be determined bigger enterprise. With its $600 billion in assets, PIF will be the new outfit's leading investor. In the meantime, it will become the premier investor in the PGA Tour.

"I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite," Monahan told reporters. "Anytime I said anything, I said it with the information that I had at that moment, and I said it based on someone that's trying to compete for the PGA Tour and our players. I accept those criticisms, but circumstances do change."

So what did change? Money obviously. And lots of it. This out-of-the-blue deal saves the PGA Tour from burning through untold millions fighting a variety of legal battles against a foe with limitless resources. It also provides the Tour and its players with a life-changing financial shot in the arm.

Even McIlroy is not naive to this fact.

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