Trump thinks he can fix golf's mess. He starts by playing golf with PGA Tour commissioner

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Trump thinks he can fix golf's mess. He starts by playing golf with PGA Tour commissioner

2024-11-19 01:23 Last Updated At：01:31

President-elect Donald Trump boasted during the campaign he would need about 15 minutes to get a deal done between the PGA Tour and the Saudi investors of LIV Golf. That started with four hours on the golf course with PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan.

The Washington Post reported Monahan accepted an invitation from Trump to play golf last Friday at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The PGA Tour confirmed the outing in a statement.

“President-Elect Trump has always been a champion of the game of golf and Commissioner Monahan was honored to accept his invitation to play at Trump International," the statement said. "The President-Elect and the Commissioner share a love for the game and the Commissioner enjoyed their time together.”

The next day, Trump attended a UFC heavyweight championship in New York with Elon Musk and Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the financial support of the rival LIV tour that has caused the massive rift in the game.

Monahan and al-Rumayyan played golf together in the Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland last month on the European tour.

The tour has not disclosed the nature of those discussions, and Monahan has not shared details even with key players to keep negotiations private.

The PGA Tour and PIF announced an agreement on June 6, 2023, for the Saudi sovereign wealth fund to become an investor in a new commercial venture by the PGA Tour. That quickly got the attention of the Justice Department, and while the agreement called for a Dec. 31 deadline, negotiations are still taking place.

The PGA Tour struck a deal with a consortium of sports owners, Strategic Sports Group, for an initial $1.5 million investment in PGA Tour Enterprises that could grow to $3 billion.

Meanwhile, golf remains deeply divided as the PGA Tour has banned LIV players — U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm among them — from competing in its tournaments.

All of golf's best players meet only four times a year in the majors.

Trump joined the “Let's Go!" podcast with Jim Gray and Bill Belichick on the eve of the election and said, “it would take me the better part of 15 minutes to get that deal done.”

“I'm really going to work on other things, to be honest with you,” Trump said on the podcast. "I think we have much bigger problems than that. But I do think we should have one tour and they should have the best players in that tour.”

Trump's golf courses hosted two LIV events in the inaugural 2022 season, three events in 2023 and one event this year. None of the Trump courses — in Miami, New Jersey and the Washington area — is on the 2025 schedule, which still has not been completed.

Trump was bullish about LIV Golf when it started and predicted a merger was inevitable. He warned PGA Tour players on the Truth Social media platform in July 2022, “If you don't take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were.”

Trump also has had his fights with the PGA Tour before he was elected the first time, most notably when the tour took a World Golf Championships event from his Trump Doral in 2016 to Mexico City because the tournament couldn't find a sponsor.

Among issues to be sorted out beyond any investment by PIF is how to bring together players who stayed loyal to the PGA Tour by not taking massive signing bonuses from the Saudi league and those who defected to the rival league.

How the Justice Department views any deal is another obstacle in the negotiations.

Rory McIlroy said after the election that having Trump in office couldn't hurt the completion of any deal.

“He might be able to,” McIlroy said Nov. 6, the day after the election. “He’s got Elon Musk, who I think is the smartest man in the world, beside him. We might be able to do something if we can get Musk involved, too.”

McIlroy is just not sure about a 15-minute solution.

“I think from the outside looking in, it’s probably a little less complicated than it actually is," said McIlroy, who serves on a transaction committee involved in the deal. “But obviously Trump has great relationship with Saudi Arabia. He’s got a great relationship with golf. He’s a lover of golf. So, maybe. Who knows?”

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Host Brazil focuses G20 on fighting hunger with wars and Trump's return in the background

2024-11-19 01:25 Last Updated At：01:31

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil pushed for concerted action to alleviate hunger Monday as it hosted a summit of the Group of 20 leading economies amid global uncertainty over two major wars and incoming U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva welcomed foreign leaders to Rio de Janeiro’s modern art museum Monday morning and delivered an opening address that focused on fighting food insecurity.

“It is for those of us here, around this table, to face the undelayable task of ending this stain that shames humanity,” Lula told his colleagues. “That will be our biggest legacy.”

Heightened global tensions and uncertainty about an incoming Trump administration ahead of the summit already had tempered expectations for a strongly worded statement addressing the conflicts in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine. Further dimming prospects, G20 officials told The Associated Press that Argentina’s negotiators have started challenging some of the draft language.

That has left experts anticipaing a final document focused on social issues like the eradication of hunger — one of Brazil’s priorities — even if it still aims to include at least a mention of the ongoing wars.

“Brazilian diplomacy has been strongly engaged in this task, but to expect a substantively strong and consensual declaration in a year like 2024 with two serious international conflicts is to set the bar very high,” said Cristiane Lucena Carneiro, an international relations professor at the University of Sao Paulo.

After Lulathwarted far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro 's reelection bid in 2022, there was some excitement in the international community at the prospect of the leftist leader and savvy diplomat hosting the G20. Bolsonaro had little interest in international summits, let foreign policy be guided by ideology and clashed with several leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron. Lula took office and often quoted a catchphrase: “Brazil is back."

Under Lula, Brazil has reverted to its decades-old principle of nonalignment to carve out a policy that best safeguards its interests in an increasingly multipolar world, even as his administration's foreign policy has at times raised eyebrows.

Trump’s win in the U.S. presidential election earlier this month and the imminent return of an “America First” doctrine may also hamper the diplomatic spirit needed for broad agreement on divisive issues. “If we have one certainty, it is regarding Donald Trump’s skepticism towards multilateralism,” Carneiro said.

Two officials from Brazil and one from another G20 nation say Argentine negotiators are standing in the way of a joint declaration. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly. Two of them said that Argentina’s negotiators have raised several objections to the draft, most vehemently opposing a clause calling for a global tax on the superrich — which they had previously accepted, in July — and another promoting gender equality.

Last month, Argentina alone opposed a declaration of the G20 working group on female empowerment, preventing consensus. While Lula received heads of state Monday with smiles and warm embraces, he and Argentina's right-wing President Javier Milei stood at arms' length while briefly shaking hands. Milei is an avid Trump supporter.

Ambassador Mauricio Lyrio, Brazil’s key negotiator at G20, told reporters earlier this month that Lula's launch of a global alliance against hunger and poverty on Monday is just as important as the final statement. As of Monday, 82 nations had signed on to the plan, Brazil’s government said.

“Brazil wanted a global deal to fight poverty, a project to finance green transition and some consensus over a global tax for the superrich. Only the first one has survived,” according to Thomas Traumann, a former government minister and a political consultant based in Rio.

U.S. President Joe Biden attended the summit after a stop in Lima for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. He also traveled over the weekend to Manaus, a city in Brazil's Amazon rainforest. It was the first time a sitting American president set foot in the Amazon.

The White House announced Sunday a $50 million contribution to the Amazon Fund, the most significant international cooperation effort to preserve the rainforest, after a prior $50 million. Biden’s administration announced plans last year to give $500 million.

White House officials have said Biden also would use the summits to press allies to not lose sight of finding an end to the wars in Lebanon and Gaza and to keep up support for Ukraine as it tries to fend off Russia’s invasion. Looming large on Monday was news of Biden's decision to ease restrictions on Ukraine’s use of longer-range U.S. missiles to allow that country’s military to strike more deeply inside Russia.

During the summit, Biden pointed to his soon-to-end administration’s efforts on global hunger and poverty. He also urged counterparts to increase efforts to ease those ills as well as resolve wars in Sudan, Gaza and Ukraine.

“The United States strongly supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Everyone around this table in my view should, as well,” Biden said.

Any commitments Biden makes may be overturned by the next White House administration.

Trump’s election may cause some countries to look toward China as a more reliable partner. Meanwhile, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with China's Xi Jinping on Monday, the first meeting between British and Chinese leaders since 2018, seeking to repair relations with Beijing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is the summit’s most notable absentee. The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant that obliges member states to arrest him. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attended the meeting.

In a plaza a few blocks away, hundreds of demonstrators gathered to denounce the killings in Gaza, some beating drums and chanting “Long live the fight of the Palestinian people!” Among them were two rabbis who traveled from New York. Israel isn’t a G20 member.

“We are trying to get the message to the G20, to the leaders of the world,” said Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, from the Neturei Karta International movement. “It is so critical. We are witnessing the mass murder of people and it is being perpetuated in the name of my religion, of Judaism. We cannot be silent, we dare not be silent.”

Aamer Madhani in Rio de Janeiro, Gabriela Sá Pessoa in Sao Paulo and Jill Lawless in London, contributed to this report.