9/11 group rips LIV Golf Series
The PGA Tour already has suspended players competing in the controversial Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf Invitational Series tournament this week. Now, those players have drawn the ire of a prominent 9/11 survivors group.
On Friday, 911familiesunited.org, a coalition of families and survivors of the 2001 terrorist attacks, sent a scathing letter to representatives of American golfers Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed and Kevin Na expressing their outrage toward the golfers for participating in the new league and accusing them of sportswashing and betraying the US.
“As a freedom-loving American, I am grateful to have the freedom of choice where I work and who I work for, and I respect your right as well,” wrote Terry Strada, the organization’s national chair and a mother of three whose husband, Tom, was on the 104th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center during the attacks. “As a 9/11 widow, I feel compelled to help you understand the level of depravity the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] engaged in when it knowingly sent government agents here to establish the support network needed for those hijackers.
“As you may know, Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudis. It was the Saudis who cultivated and spread the evil, hate-filled Islamist ideology that inspired the violent jihadists to carry out the deadly 9/11 attacks . ... Yet these are your partners, and much to our disappointment, you appear pleased to be in business with them.”
Earlier this year, Mickelson set off a storm of criticism when he told a writer that the Saudi government are “scary motherf--kers” and admitted that the golf league was being used for “sportswashing” by the regime, but that he was using the rival circuit as leverage against the PGA Tour, which he accused of being a monopoly.
This week, Mickelson emerged from a four-month hiatus to play in LIV Golf’s first tournament outside London, where he was grilled as being a “Saudi stooge.” He was joined by Johnson, Na and others.
More players are also expected to defect from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf, which is essentially being bankrolled by the Public Investment Fund — the Saudis’ sovereign wealth fund, headed by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. MBS, as he is known, was behind the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2018, according to U.S. intelligence.
It was also reported on Saturday by USA Today that Khashoggi’s widow, Hatice Cengiz, thinks players competing in the Saudi golf league should be banned from the sport’s four major championships — the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and British Open.
“If they still carry on and play as if everything is normal, then they should be banned from playing in the world’s major tournaments,’’ Cengiz told the paper in an email. “This will show that there are consequences for supporting murderers, and it will show the murderers that they are not escaping justice.’’