The Pga Tour
Floor Speech
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, it is always good to be here in a nice empty Chamber, the definition of debate here in the people's House. But such is the way of our current process of debate.
I always try to remind the American people that as they are no doubt all gathered around their living rooms watching C-SPAN, sitting around talking about the issues of the day that there are two Members of the House of Representatives here, and that this is somehow what debate looks like.
We just passed an inauspicious milestone last week in which we had the 6-year anniversary of not having offered an amendment on the floor of the House of Representatives in open debate. Not one Member of the House of Representatives for the last 6 years has been able to go down to the desk and offer an amendment to change a piece of legislation. That is not what the American people think we do. They think we actually sit down here and offer an amendment and we debate and go through stuff, but that never happens. I think that really is kind of endemic of the problem why people are so frustrated with this town, but I think there is something deeper going on in our country, something deeper that merits focus.
As the Marquis de Lafayette has famously said something along the lines of America is great because America is good. I believe that. But I am increasingly curious if all Americans do. We have a cultural problem in this country. We should be honest. We have been kind of fat and happy for a while. Robust economy, generally peaceful and secure communities over the last several decades, low interest rates, housing.
But now the chickens seem to be coming home to roost. Interest rates are rising. National debt is skyrocketing. Inflation is off the charts. Food prices are up. Home prices are up. Gas prices are at $5 a gallon and rising. Crime is rising in our communities, big cities in particular but across the country. Fentanyl is pouring in. Record deaths. Opioid poisonings and overdoses. Wide open borders. The cartels have control of our borders. The price of goods and services are crushing American families. That is the reality of what we are facing right now.
And I talk about those things a lot, and there is something that has been on my mind this week. This week for a lot of fathers is Father's Day. This week for fans of college baseball is the week of the College World Series. I am a big fan of college baseball, as is my son. I brought him up here to see the University of Virginia play in 2014 and again in 2015. It is next week. We have got the University of Texas, my law school alma mater, Texas A&M University, and six other schools playing in the College World Series.
But my pure sports love is golf. I was a not very good walk-on at the University of Virginia. Had I been better, then I wouldn't be relegated to this Chamber. I would be out and about making money playing the tour. But alas, here I am as a Member of Congress, and I am going to use floor time on the House of Representatives to talk about the PGA Tour, something I never really thought that I would do. It never really seems to rise to the level of something you would talk about in the people's House.
But here is the problem: Today, we have a few American players on the PGA Tour that are bolting for enormous, guaranteed checks by the Saudi Arabian bankrolled LIV Golf league. Now, that catches my attention because it gets to the heart of something that is wrong in this country. Those individuals are doing themselves, their reputations, their chosen sport, and the American communities in which they have previously allegedly invested, a very deep disservice in the process. The PGA Tour is absolutely right to sanction them for it.
This week is the week of the United States Open Championship. It is at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. That is particularly noteworthy for golf fans because it is the site of an epic story of a young, American man, Francis Ouimet, who was able to win the United States Open unexpectedly back in, I think, 1913--I'm pulling that from my memory--over a century ago. It was the site of the epic comeback of the American Ryder Cup team in 1999 when University of Texas Longhorn, Justin Leonard, sunk a 40-foot putt on the 17th hole. It is a historic venue right outside of Boston, a historic American city deeply rooted in our history.
And yet, there is a cloud hanging over the United States Open this week. And that cloud is the greed and the absurd self-absorbed nature of a handful of the PGA Tour's elites who are willing to sell their athletic soul, their professional soul to a Saudi Arabian league for their shekels. And it is absolutely an abomination.
Thankfully, most of the best players in the world are proudly and loudly holding firm, players like Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, to name a few. But this issue is bigger than just a few players or a mere competition within the game of golf that some want to dismiss it as.
The LIV Golf league, as I said, is beholden to the Saudis and helping them whitewash their global reputation and history of human rights abuses and supporting terrorists, the very terrorists that attacked America 21 years ago.
The Saudi golf league is bad for professional golf for a host of reasons, from the Saudi's human rights abuses to the gouging of Americans on gas. The Saudis are not our friends. LIV is ignoring Saudi Arabia's connections to the national tragedy of 9/11 or the many other grave human rights abuses that the country has faced over the years, and it is disappointing to witness.
Handing tens of millions of dollars to professional golfers like Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, and Phil Mickelson who can look the other way, ignore the questions all for their personal enrichment. What does that say about who we are?
Let's talk about the PGA Tour for a second. Total charitable dollars from the PGA Tour and its tournaments have totaled $3.37 billion for thousands of charities across this country in most States across the Union. $3.37 billion.
Let me stop for a second for those who don't follow golf and say, Why are you talking about golf on the floor of the House?
There are dozens of PGA Tour events across this country. There is one in the district I represent in central Texas, the Valero Texas Open. The Valero Texas Open is the sixth oldest professional golf tournament worldwide, including the majors, the third oldest on the PGA Tour not counting the majors, and the longest tournament held in the same city, the hundredth year in 2022.
Their charitable giving is one of the leaders in the clubhouse on the PGA Tour with $209 million in total and a record $22 million from the 2022 tournament. That is 209 million charitable dollars flowing in through the Valero Texas Open into the communities I represent. So many good things come out of that.
Now, let's talk a little bit about the guys that are bolting for the deep pockets of the Saudi Arabians. Phil Mickelson, famously six-time major winner. $133,772,000 in career earnings on the PGA Tour. Dustin Johnson, $107.5 million. Sergio Garcia, $66 million, Bryson DeChambeau, $35 million. Tiger Woods, $186 million.
Now, let me stop. Tiger said no. Tiger was offered, I have heard, upwards of a billion dollars, certainly something like $750 million to attach his brand and go join this so-called LIV Golf league, and he said no so far. That is the right thing to do. How many of us would have turned down $750 million or a billion dollars? How many of us would have turned that down? So far Tiger has turned that down, and he should be thanked for that.
Rory McIlroy has had $106 million of earnings on the tour. Jordan Spieth has had $75.8 million of winnings on the tour. They have all said no. But not Phil, not Dustin, not Sergio, not Bryson, not a handful of others who have all said, I am going to go sell my soul for $200 million. In the case of Phil Mickelson, $200 million of guaranteed money that came from the Saudi Arabians.
How can we condone a league funded by the same people who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, murdered journalists, promote anti- Semitism, and stage mass executions?
I had family who had to work in Saudi Arabia; one in the State Department, one in oil and gas. They had to be careful about whether they had a Bible with them. They had to be careful about what they said, how they acted. My female family members had to be careful about where they were, what they were wearing, what they were doing.
And now you have the 9/11 Families United that have spoken out against this LIV Golf league due to Saudi Arabia's role in training and financing the 9/11 hijackers, 15 of whom were citizens of Saudi Arabia. It feels like a betrayal, the national chair of the 9/11 Families United said. My husband, who died in the 9/11 attacks, was a scratch golfer. He was a Phil Mickelson fan. He even tried to be a pro before he worked on Wall Street. My youngest is the captain of his golf team. Our family understands the integrity that the sport requires, but these guys are not interested in any of that. And that is the story.
For those that are watching this or this clip, if you are watching this, if you are a golf fan, you have lived and breathed watching these majors over the last several decades. Phil Mickelson is about my age. When he was playing golf out in Arizona I was at the University of Virginia. We overlapped a couple years. He was good. I was terrible. Here I am. But I have been watching him his whole career as a fan. I have some friends who have been on tour. I have friends that are in the golf industry. But I am watching Phil Mickelson. We all cheered when he finally won the Masters in 2004. We cheered again when he won again in 2006, and again when he won in, I think, 2010. Then when he won the PGA Championship last year we thought, Oh my gosh, he won this over the age of 50. That is extraordinary. He is going to be able to sail off into the sunset and go out and get the adulation he deserves and carry golf forward.
Then over the last year he and all these others say, You know what, no, that is not good enough. The whole purpose of the PGA Tour is a meritocracy. You go out and earn it. Nobody gives you anything. It is a great American sport because no one gives you anything.
You walk out on the course, you tee it up, and you better your peers, and for that you win the purse. It is what draws people to the sport. An individual alone standing on the course, standing on a green with thousands of people watching, millions on TV, with a club in their hand and one ball and they have to execute.
What does Mickelson do? What does Sergio do? What does Bryson do? They sell their reputations. They sell their soul for Saudi blood money, the very money, the same wealth funds that are being used to challenge our national security and our well-being.
This isn't competition, as some say. What are you afraid of? This is another tour competing with the PGA tour. Okay. Then go prove an economic model and go out and compete, but don't go sell your soul to someone buying it.
The Saudi Golf League is exhibition golf. As many say, the PGA tour is for people who want to earn their success in the game of golf and compete against the best. Importantly, as I said--there is an old adage: Dance with the one who brung ya.
The PGA tour goes back a century. The game of golf is moving from the aristocracy of the gentlemen's amateur ranks to the world of the mid- 20th century with Ben Hogan, a Texan; Byron Nelson, a Texan; and Sam Snead from Virginia, and they built a tour.
They literally followed the sun: tournaments in California, tournaments in Florida, Texas, the South, they move up and they play up the East Coast. They follow the sun--it is a tour--and they made peanuts. They did it for the love of the game. They did it building a league. They came out in the sixties--Arnie's Army--Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, and they built this tour up to what I just said, $3.37 billion in charitable giving.
In communities across the country--the Valero Texas Open, which I represent. All of the great spots around this country: Pebble Beach, Riviera, Colonial in Fort Worth. These are integral in our communities. These guys just walk away. Whatever. I don't care about building up the next generation. I don't care about what this sport means. I don't care about the fact that the PGA tour has to compete against the NFL, the Major League Baseball, the NBA, NHL, all the other forms of entertainment, college football, college basketball.
No. No. I want to look out for me. I want to look out for myself. I am going to go take $200 million in guaranteed money--or $120 million in guaranteed money, if you are Dustin Johnson, $20 to $30 million for Ian Poulter, and $100 million if you are Bryson DeChambeau.
Getting guaranteed money so you can go play golf with not the best-- with money that came from Saudi Arabia, the purpose of which is to target and disrupt the PGA tour, and nothing more. It is an absolute embarrassment.
As I said before, as I sit here on the floor of the House, why am I spending time on this? First of all, I have great passion for it as a personal matter. I have devoted a lot of my life to this sport. I love it. I teach my kid this sport. It is a sport based on honor. It is a sport based on integrity.
That is why things like The First Tee program are valuable. You learn the rules. You follow the rules. It is a meritocracy. You win by going to the course and beating the course. You treat each other with respect. It is a great sport. Now these guys are just throwing that away. Throwing the honor of your commitment to an entity, an organization, that made you wealthy for playing a game; you throw that away to go kiss the ring of Saudi royalty and get your check. Go cash your check.
Is that what life is all about? Is that where we are? I started this talking about America is great because America is good. Well, what is good about that? I am all for competition. I am all for people prospering and succeeding based on their skills and their talents: starting a business, playing a sport, whatever they are, artists. Go forward and sell your product.
You want to go start a rival league, a Canadian football league that competes with the NFL. We had the USFL for a while. Way back in the day we had the NBA and the ABA. We had the NFL and then we had the AFL, then they merged. We got the NFL with an NFC and AFC. I get that. Time changed.
But you are going to go sell your soul to the Saudis? Have some self- respect. Actually stand up for the sport that you said you love, and you want to share with the world. Stand alongside the tour, the sports franchise, that actually is building up the game, creating development leagues like the Korn Ferry Tour, which was built out of the Hogan tour, helping our communities across the country.
One last point of all this. I have heard the former President, President Trump, endorsing the LIV Golf League. Could that possibly be because Trump National Doral or Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey will host tournaments? I suspect so. Sure as heck not because it is an advocacy for what is good for the sport. It is not an advocacy for the tour that has allowed those individuals to be elevated and compete against the sports that get, frankly, greater notoriety.
Here is what is interesting about what the tour has done. These are the highest paid athletes of all time, as reported by Sportico: Number two, Tiger Woods, $2.1 billion--this is all in, endorsements and dollars earned; Arnold Palmer at $1.5 billion at number 3; Jack Nicklaus at number 4 with $1.38 billion; Phil Mickelson, $1 billion; Greg Norman, $815 million. These guys are all in the top 15.
The tour has made these guys wealthy, and they turn around and they stab the tour in the back to go chase their 30 shekels. It is absolutely unconscionable.
I stand with the tour. I stand with the players that I mentioned before, the Jordan Spieths, the Justin Thomases, the Rory McIlroys, the guys that are standing up and saying: No thanks, I am going to stick with the tour, I am going to dance with the one who brung ya.
I stand up for the tour events throughout this country that are raising millions of dollars for charity, providing jobs, providing economic growth and activity. And, importantly, standing up for this great sport, this great institution. As we sit here in U.S. Open week, what I believe is the greatest golf tournament in the world because it is open to anyone who can compete.
If you can go string together seven rounds of golf, you can be the United States Open champion. In the spirit of the country club right outside of Brookline, and the story of Francis Ouimet--made into a movie, by the way--that is the spirit of what you can do in America if you just set out to go do it.
The Good Book in Luke 12:48 says: To whom much is given, much is expected, much is demanded--depending on your translation.
These guys have made hundreds of millions of dollars playing a game. They owe the respect to the tour and to the guys they play alongside. They owe to the communities that have enriched them and rallied around them, their courtesy of defending and standing up for the sport and the league and the PGA tour in this country that has enabled them to prosper and has helped grow this game into one of the great economic engines and sport franchises in the world.
Shame on them for walking away from the PGA tour. God bless the PGA tour for pushing back and saying: You don't get to do that. God bless the members of the tour that are standing strong, standing alongside the community members, standing alongside all of the sponsors and the people that have made that work and have built such a great institution.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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