The PGA agrees to team up with its golfing arch-enemy

Many a businessPGADP LIV LIVLIV TV LIV PGA LIV deal is sealed on the golf course. So it was on June 6th, when America’s Tour and Europe’s World Tour, the biggest organising bodies in men’s golf, said they had agreed to merge with Golf, a Saudi Arabian upstart. The merger, which will reportedly see ’s backers invest around $3bn in the combined entity, ends a costly split in the game and gives the Saudis membership of one of the most august clubs in sport.Golf teed off last June, financed by Saudi Arabia’s $650bn sovereign-wealth fund. It brought made-for- razzmatazz to a normally genteel game. Shorter tournaments feature teams with names like Crushers. Polite applause gave way to whooping. Star players were paid a fortune to take part, despite misgivings that the Saudis were “scary motherfuckers”, in the words of Phil Mickelson, one who took the money. To hang on to talent, the old tourswielded a carrot and a nine-iron. They increased prize money (if not quite to Saudi levels), banned defectors to and highlighted Saudi Arabia’s human-rights record. The and have sued and counter-sued one another for interfering with the other’s business.