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LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau: 9/11 Families Should Forgive Saudi Arabia, Since ‘Nobody’s Perfect’

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Bryson DeChambeau is a professional golfer, now playing for the Saudi-funded LIV Golf Tour, which has just announced a merger with the PGA Tour. DeChambeau has now spoken about the historic merger between the PGA Tour, the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), and the DP World Tour that was announced on Tuesday, May 6, when he made a curious suggestion regarding the controversial PIF and its involvement in golf. More on his comments, and on the massive Saudi effort at “sportswashing,” can be found here: “LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau suggests 9/11 families should forgive Saudi Arabia: ‘Nobody’s perfect,'” by Scott Thompson, Fox News, June 9, 2023:

Since its inception, LIV Golf has been controversial, and not just because its goal of rivaling the biggest professional golf tour on the planet. Being backed by the PIF has created a large debate over their funding of terrorism before and after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. During an interview this week following the merger, DeChambeau was asked about what he would say to those families who were devastated by the 9/11 attacks by losing loved ones.

“I think we’ll never be able to repay the families back for what exactly happened just over 20 years ago and what happened is definitely horrible,” he told CNN. “I think as time has gone on, 20 years has passed, we’re in a place now where it’s time to start trying to work together to make things better together as a whole….

“I think as we move forward from that, we have to look toward the pathway to peace and forgiveness, especially if we’re trying to mend the world and make it a better place. I think this is what they’re trying to accomplish, LIV is trying to accomplish, PIF is trying to accomplish. We’re all trying to accomplish is a better world for everybody with entertainment for everybody around the world.”…

No, “making the world a better place” is not what the Saudis are trying to accomplish with their LIV Tour, that has now merged with the PGA Tour. They are trying to burnish their image through “sportswashing.”

“It’s unfortunate what has happened and something I can’t necessarily speak on. I’m a golfer,” DeChambeau added. “But what I can say is that what they’re trying to do, what they’re trying to work on is to be better allies because we are allies with them. I’m not going to get into politics, I’m not specialized in that. What I can say is they’re trying to do good for the world and showcase themselves in a light that hasn’t been seen in a while.

“Nobody’s perfect, but we’re all trying to improve in life.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” Think about that – De Chambeau is speaking about the Saudis. It was the perfect ending, when Osgood Fielding III says it to Daphne, as the last line of Some Like It Hot. But it’s not wonderful, when DeChambeau, the recent recipient of a $150 million contract from the Saudis that is part of their plan, through sportswashing, to make us forget or overlook the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, the decapitations of prisoners, the bombing of civilians in Yemen, the insufficiently investigated links between the 9/11 terrorists and Saudi officials. DeChambeau has the gall to tell the 9/11 families who have objected to American golfers being willing to join a Saudi-owned enterprise that they should be more forgiving because….”nobody’s perfect.”

DeChambeau reportedly got a $150 million signing bonus to jump ship from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf. He was among the group that cashed in, while others like Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods remained loyal to the Tour despite reportedly receiving nine-figure offers as well.

The merger irked players who turned down money for loyalty.

The PIF [the Saudi Sovereign Fund] will be the main financial supporter of this new entity, per the merger’s release on Tuesday, while all litigation between the respective tours will be put to an end.

“This is the best thing that could ever happen for the game of golf, and I’m extremely proud to be a part of that,” DeChambeau said.

“I truly believe in the end, the game of golf wins in this scenario.”

Hmm. So DeChambeau believes that the “best thing that could ever happen for the game of golf” is for the game, as a professional sport, to be indelibly linked to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its Crown Prince, with his baggage of atrocities and his sneer of cold command. After all, how else could DeChambeau have acquired that nice little nest egg of $150 million? It seems that most every golf professional can be bought. Or almost everyone; Tiger Woods has held out, but cynics may say that’s because he already has a net worth of more than a billion dollars. Rory McIlroy has held out, too, but the same cynics will no doubt explain that’s because he has a net worth of $250 million.

The Saudis have also also managed to hire the soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo to play for the Saudi team Al Nassr FC; Ronaldo will make $200 million a year for at least three years. The Saudis recently bought the English soccer team, Newcastle United, which has now become one of the richest teams In world soccer. Last year Newcastle spent 278 million dollars on hiring new players. Another Saudi team, Al Ittihad, has hired Karim Benzema, who had been playing for Real Madrid, to play for it. His three-year contract will be worth $800 million. The sky’s the limit, when it comes to the Saudi Sovereign Fund.

Saudi Arabia has also used its oil riches to buy sponsorships of Formula One, heavyweight boxing championships, and soccer’s 2023 Club World Cup, and harbors ambitions to host the 2030 FIFA World Cup.

No country in the world is investing more in motorsport currently than Saudi Arabia. One of the new venues for Formula Oni competitions is a new street circuit in Jeddah. F1 has signed a long-term contract with Saudi Arabia to host F1 races, and ultimately the race will run on a new purpose-built circuit that is being developed in Qiddiya, located in Riyadh, where one of the Prince’s megaprojects for sports and entertainment is being built. The Saudis also have paid for the Dakar rally, Formula E, and Extreme E events.

In 2021, a Saudi-owned horse, Medina Spirit, won the Kentucky Derby. But in horse racing, the Saudis are still hoping to catch up to the many Emiratis who have long been involved in the sport, especially their more successful rivals on the racetrack, the Al-Maktoum family of Dubai. The Saudis will spend whatever it takes to put their horses, races, tracks, and prizes, on the map.They have now completed several world-class racetracks. The Saudi Cup (Arabic: كأس السعودية) is an international horse race held at King Abdulaziz Racetrack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is the richest horse race ever held, with a $20 million purse. That’s how the Saudis get the racing world’s, and then the public’s, attention and interest.

No doubt there will be more soccer stars lured away to play both for Saudi teams, and for European teams owned by the Saudis, such as Newcastle United, with sky-high salaries offered. Along with Saudi-paid golf players and tournaments, we will be hearing more about Saudi Arabia’s own teams, which will be boosted into world-class competitors once the Saudis have bought enough European, South American, and African stars transferring them to the four Saudi teams: Al Nassr, Al-Ittihad, Al-Hali, and Al-Hilal.

For the Western public, Saudi atrocities and misdeeds — they bear repeating from above — including the bombing of civilians in Yemen, the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi, the imprisonment of political dissenters such as Raif Badawi (who was in prison for ten years for “insulting Islam,” that is, attacking the very idea of theocracy and calling for a secular state), the connections of Saudi officials to Al Qaeda terrorists, the $100 billion the Saudis have spent in the last forty years building Wahhabi mosques, and paying for their imams’ salaries, all across the globe, will, the Saudis believe, in time be forgotten. So much interest and enthusiasm will be generated – so Riyadh has calculated – from the sports teams and athletes and prizes and new facilities the Saudis will be paying for, in golf, soccer, horse racing, motor racing, that this “sportswashing” is bound to burnish the Kingdom’s image.

More people, especially the athletes and trainers and promoters on the receiving end of so much cash, will take a much less critical tone. In fact, they will suddenly be ready to defend their new paymasters in Riyadh. All right, they will say, the Saudis haven’t always lived according to our standards, but we’re all different – right? Who’s to say we’re any better than Saudi Arabia? Let’s look toward building a “better future” with our Saudi friends, and not harp on their past peccadilloes. And as DeChambeau wisely reminds us, “Nobody’s perfect.”

Comments

  1. Part of the driver for this LIV-PGA merger was President Trump, and he’d probably not have done that had the PGA not cancelled him by pulling their tournament out of his golf course

    As the previous story by Christine indicated, the Saudis are looking at ending ties w/ the US, thanks to Biden’s handling of the relationship. In the last few months, the Saudis have warmed up to Beijing and signed a treaty w/ Iran, in which it’s fair to assume that Beijing will prevail on Teheran to not violate Saudi Arabia if Beijing wants Riyadh’s money. The Saudis too have agreed to accept Reminbi while doing business w/ China: that is a larger part of the “dedollarization” movement going on in most of the world, outside the US. Problem is that this administration, while willing to diss Saudi Arabia, still begs it to produce more oil, as though Saudi oil has less of an impact on “climate change” than American oil does

    Normally, I might have been more critical, but given how we’ve allowed the Chicoms to dictate the NBA if we want it to be successful in China, I don’t see how Saudi money is any more tainted than Chinese money. Yeah, they did 9/11, but every administration – Bush, Obama and Trump – has refused to unseal the redacted part of the 9/11 report that covered the Saudi role. That’s a bigger deal for US than the murder of Khashoggi or the imprisonment of Raif Badawi

    Also, there has been a major “regime change” b/w that of King Abdullah, during which 9/11 and all these other events occurred, and now, under King Salman/MbS. The reports about the Saudis reforming have been mixed, as we see reports about Saudis who want to leave islam or behave less islamically still being persecuted. But we did not make a big fuss about Qatar hosting the soccer world cup, and Qatar is right now far more virulent in its support of the Muslim Brotherhood & other such jihadist activity than Saudi Arabia

    • I think all of this Islamization of Western sports is insanity, Infidel, including so many soccer teams being bought up by oil-rich Mohammedans.

      • On a larger level, I’m not thrilled at foreign ownership of any sports team. English teams should have English owners, Italian teams Italian, Australian teams Australian and so on. The most shocking thing for me was to learn that the MCC had moved its headquarters to Dubai to avoid British taxes that it would have from staying at Lords

        We’ve already seen how in the NBA, no one can speak out against China on anything, be it on Covid, the Uyghurs, their racism and so on. It won’t be too long before these sports teams find out that they can’t speak out against the muslim migration into Europe, be they Arabs, Turks, Pakis or anyone else

  2. All those who drive gas guzzling V8s (predominantly Americans) & rail against EVs still don’t understand that they are supporters of Arab oil producers AND Islamic terror. True, in recent years the USA has reduced imports of that commodity but 50 years of excessive consumption has taken it’s toll on climate change (which is in quotations, indicating a non-believer).
    Climate change or not, replacing as much oil as possible with clean energy is essential. As for Trump’s “lovely clean coal”… it shows what an utter moron he is.

    • You missed the years b/w 2016-2020 when the US was a leading producer and exporter of oil. In fact, in 2020, during the pandemic, oil prices were negative i.e. you had to pay buyers to fill up their strategic reserves w/ oil b’cos the producers were so much in excess, and the US had to negotiate b/w Saudi Arabia and Russia, which were in a price pissing contest

      No, the solution to this issue of Arab or Russian oil is to get oil from the US and Canada, so that the supply issues are solved. The issues w/ EV, ignoring the issue of “climate change”, are that the grid doesn’t have the capacity to power all the electric cars that would result if we (i.e. a major percentage of the population) did go from ICE to EV. There is no way either Solar or Wind could support that. One of their major problems is that they are very real-estate intensive. Which might work great in an empty country like Australia where you fill up the great Outback w/ solar panels and windmills, but it’s totally untenable in the US when you have to decide b/w solar farms and crop farms

      The problem w/ most of the Leftists in any country is that they oppose any real efforts to escalate energy production, even if it is Hydro or Nuclear. Their agenda is not the phasing in of “clean energy”: it is ending private transportation as we know it and making all places be as dependent on Subway systems like New York and San Francisco. When one combines that w/ the fact that the major asset management companies like BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard are busy buying up suburban real estate so that nobody can build single family homes, the direction is pretty clear: use Corporate America to introduce crony Communism into the US – something that the US government alone would never be able to do

      As for climate change, if we could override the Leftist nay-sayers, there would be a lot more put into nuclear, hydro and LNG. The reason the environment in the US has improved by leaps and bounds, despite being the biggest consumer of energy, is that gas has replaced petroleum and coal in a lot of areas. If this can spread worldwide, carbon emissions per capita would be a lot less than what they currently are

      • Infidel,

        Do you know of any fact-based study that compares the cradle-to-grave environmental impact of ICE cars versus EV cars?

        • No. Also, the fact that EV batteries are not recyclable, and very expensive needs to be a factor. A friend of mine, who previously owned a hybrid, recently bought an ancient used car (early 00s) and told me that her next car, when she has the money, will be a pickup. The battery in her hybrid would have cost $2000, which is more than she paid for the relic

    • Whatever you think of coal, coal is not oil. The Middle East is not a large coal producing region.

  3. The selfish, heartless fool, probably didn’t lose anyone, not family, not friend, when the buildings went down, and the planes full of passengers went down and all those poor people died fiery deaths.

    All the moms, dads, little children, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, and close friends perished and he wants those responsible to be “forgiven because nobody’s perfect.” How about they come up with some apologies first? Allowing golfers to go and rake in big bucks does not even one small apology make.

    If I had lost family or friend, I’d tell him to G.T.H.

  4. Well, I always build my life around the advice offered by ballplayers who take $Ms to inform us that the new standard is that nobody’s perfect and who are all about the best thing that could ever happen and how extremely proud they are to play a part. And who play in slave-built stadiums. And who can’t be bothered to concern themselves with half-status women and no status children or religious objectors or families destroyed by terrorists running all the way to the top of governments and sanctioned by a religion. Why not.

  6. Hopefully fans will scream “Alluhu akbarrrrrrr!” with every tee-shot. More slices than at an Riyahd execution ground…Go islamophilic, go imbecilic!

  7. I can’t see how getting involved with saudi arabia and barbaric islam is the way to make ” things better as a whole’ as the golfer says. I can see how the golfers would be loving all that extra money. It is like winning the lottery. I couldn’t see how golfers weren’t doing brilliantly and having a fine life with the present PGA type tour. They had the four majors as highlights, just like tennis does, they were making good money and I could not see the need for this new garbage. As for taking notice of what often know nothing athletes say about islam or politics, it is about as idiotic as listening to what often totally ignorant movie stars or pop stars have to say on issues that they know absolutely bugger all about. They often talk complete nonsense and self-interest reigns supreme.

    • Tim, this guy seems very ignorant and shallow, saying what he did about making the world better because he’s playing golf in saudi arabia.
      There are so many serious issues in the world and golf is just not going to make any of them go away, get better, improve the lives of those suffering, etc.

      This guy is just looking out for himself and trying to make himself feel better for his selfishness and greed.

      • somehistory, he is probaably a pretty unaware, dopey person. In fact, what he is saying about Saudi arabia is definitely stupid. Hey, nobody’s perfect!! Downright bizarre stateement. You are probably right and he is trying to convince himself that what he is involved with is OK. Thanks for the +1, gravenimage.

  8. LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau: 9/11 Families Should Forgive Saudi Arabia, Since ‘Nobody’s Perfect’
    …………………………………

    “Nobody’s perfect”? That’s a pretty perverse way of characterizing the murder of almost 3000 American civilians, and targeting of many more. It is not as though this is some sort of minor tariff dust-up.

    I knew this golf debacle was a very bad idea–I just hadn’t realized *how bad*.

    • It is an appalling, morally bankrupt statement, gravenimage, that’s for sure. I has to be the extra dollars that he and other golfers will make that is causing him to talk this way. I can’t see any reason for this new set-up for golf. It seemed to have a good system already. Anything involving saudi Arabia has to be a rotten idea.

  9. Some very successful golfers got bought out. Period. They were already fantastically wealthy. Golf was doing just fine before LIV got involved. Its “help” was totally unnecessary. The billion or two spent to date could, and should, have been spent much more productively in any number of different ways.
    What’s next? Wimbledon?
    Oil revenues allow them to continue developing and building absolutely nothing. It simply allows them to buy what others have devoted their lives to building. They are adding nothing of value.
    P.S. Rory may feel cheated but he’s got my support (for what that’s worth) and, more importantly, he can look in the mirror when he shaves.

    • Well, golf is not the first sport to sell out. Just look at the number of sports clubs worldwide that now have Middle Eastern ownership, be it soccer, cricket, hockey,…

  12. Hate to tell him but Saudi Arabia is NOT our friend. But again it shows how easy to is for Saudi Arabia to buy friends and spread educational and political propaganda in America.

    Sadly our country keeps going back to Saudi oil even though we could be producing that oil locally.

    At this time there are NOT enough EV’s available to offset the demand for oil, so lets produce that oil here in America rather than supporting the muslim world.

  13. God forgives…me?…they can go to hell. No amount of money can buy and clean your soul.

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