It is estimated that Trump played hundreds of rounds of golf during his first term as president of the United States
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is practising golf – for the first time in eight years – in preparation for future meetings with US president-elect Donald Trump, Yoon’s office has confirmed.
South Korean media said Yoon had visited a golf course on Saturday for a sport his office said he had last played in 2016.
Continue reading...Irish building materials firm was identified by Grenfell inquiry as behaving with ‘persistent dishonesty’
A second professional golfer, Leona Maguire, is under pressure to end her sponsorship deal with the Irish company Kingspan after the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster found it behaved with “persistent dishonesty” in selling combustible foam insulation.
Grenfell United (GU), the bereaved and survivors group, is calling on the 29-year-old to drop the firm and stop wearing its logo on her golf shirts after the Ryder Cup player Shane Lowry announced he was doing so earlier this week.
Continue reading...A former warehouse assistant for the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia pleaded guilty Wednesday to transporting millions of dollars worth of stolen Masters tournament memorabilia and historic items, including one of Arnold Palmer’s green jackets.
Richard Globensky, of Georgia, entered the plea during his initial appearance in federal court in Chicago.
Federal prosecutors said the 39-year-old would take items from the warehouse and sell and transport them to another party in Florida for sale online. The scheme went on for nearly a decade and Globensky made roughly $5m from the sales. As part of a plea deal, Globensky must write a $1.5m cashier’s check to the government.
He was charged with one count of transporting goods knowing they had been stolen.
“I plead guilty,” Globensky, who was wearing a suit and tie, told the judge.
The items – stolen between 2009 and 2022 – included T-shirts, mugs and chairs, and historic memorabilia, including green jackets and tickets to Masters tournaments in the 1930s. The total loss to Augusta National was more than $3m, according to prosecutors. A representative for Augusta National did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment.
Globensky declined to comment to reporters. His attorney, Thomas Church, said the case was being tried in Chicago because some of the stolen goods were recovered in the area.
Sentencing will be in late October. Globensky faces a maximum of 10 years in prison, but will likely get closer to two years in prison under the sentencing guidelines.
Augusta National hosts the annual Masters golf tournament. This year’s edition was won by Scottie Scheffler last month.
Richard Blumenthal to consider ‘other legal methods’ to compel Yasir al-Rumayyan to speak to Senate oversight committee
A senior US lawmaker has challenged a Saudi Arabian official’s refusal to voluntarily testify before a Senate committee investigating the kingdom’s controversial golf deal with the PGA Tour, saying officials should be prepared to be subject to American laws and oversight if they invest in the US.
Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator from Connecticut who serves as chairman of the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, also said he would consider “other legal methods” to force Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund (PIF), to testify if he continued to refuse.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Billions deployed since early 2021 in a move critics say is an attempt to distract from human rights record
Saudi Arabia has spent at least $6.3bn (£4.9bn) in sports deals since early 2021, more than quadruple the previous amount spent over a six-year period, in what critics have labelled an effort to distract from its human rights record.
Saudi Arabia has deployed billions from its Public Investment Fund over the last two-and-a-half years according to analysis by the Guardian, spending on sports at a scale that has completely changed professional golf and transformed the international transfer market for football.
Continue reading...Mohammed bin Salman said to look to repair his reputation after 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul
The proposed merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Tour and the American PGA Tour marks the latest maneuver by Riyadh in its campaign to repair its reputation and head off the sort of blacklisting that occurred after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent advocate for democracy in the Middle East told the Guardian.
“This is a merger in name only. This is really about the Saudi government throwing a premium at PGA Tour that they obviously found too overwhelmingly tempting to resist,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn).
Continue reading...Invitation raises possibility Yasir al-Rumayyan could be questioned under oath about execution of Jamal Khashoggi
The powerful governor of Saudi Arabia’s state-backed investment fund has been invited to testify before a Senate committee in the wake of a proposed merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Tour and the PGA, raising the possibility the executive could be questioned under oath about issues ranging from the future of golf to the execution of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, was invited to testify on 11 July by the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, whose chairman, the Democratic senator Dick Blumenthal, is one of the toughest critics of Saudi Arabia on Capitol Hill.
This article was amended on 21 June 2023 to clarify that Yasir al-Rumayyan is the governor of Saudi Arabia’s state-backed investment fund, rather than the chairman.
Continue reading...Human rights campaigners argue there is no difference between thwarted Saudi bid to sponsor Women’s World Cup and its rebel golf funding
The South Australian government’s support of a Saudi-backed golf tournament has come under renewed criticism after the kingdom’s failed attempt to sponsor the Fifa Women’s World Cup.
The LIV golf tour, which has reportedly received billions from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, will make its Australian debut at the Grange Golf Club in Adelaide next month despite being internationally condemned as an attempt to “sportswash” the regime’s human rights abuses.
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Continue reading...Frodsham golf course joins growing number of sites being put to new, more community friendly use
It was once an immaculate golf course where footballers such as Michael Owen and Dietmar Hamann teed off.
These days, the only holes are those made by badgers and woodpeckers. Instead of golfers, self-sown silver birch saplings march over the greens.
Continue reading...Greg Norman faced accusations of promoting Saudi “propaganda” following meetings with Washington lawmakers, in which the Australian golfer sought to garner support for the Saudi-backed LIV Series in its bitter dispute with the PGA Tour.
Norman, who serves as LIV’s CEO and has been the public face of the breakaway tour, ostensibly came to the US capital this week to criticise what he has called the PGA’s “anti-competitive efforts” to stifle LIV.
Continue reading...Exclusive: State’s sports minister says NSW is ‘the perfect place’ for major tournaments, with Greg Norman believed to be scouting Sydney courses
The New South Wales government is “ready and willing” to have discussions with Greg Norman in a bid to bring the Saudi-backed LIV golf tour to Sydney, the state’s sports minister has said.
Amid increasing speculation Norman is seeking to bring the controversial breakaway tournament to Australia, the minister, Alister Henskens, confirmed he was open to hosting the multi-million dollar rebel series.
Continue reading...Greg Norman was not the first choice to be the face of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Series, whose Saudi Arabian organizers pursued and preferred Jack Nicklaus, according to the 73-time PGA Tour winner.
“I was offered something in excess of $100m by the Saudis, to do the job probably similar to the one that Greg is doing,” Nicklaus said in a story with Fire Pit Collective. “I turned it down. Once verbally, once in writing. I said, ‘Guys, I have to stay with the PGA Tour. I helped start the PGA Tour.’”
Continue reading...Australian golf champion makes remarks about journalist’s murder at Saudi-backed league event
The golf champion Greg Norman has attempted to dismiss questions over the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate as a “mistake,” adding the Saudi government “wants to move forward”.
Norman was speaking at a promotional event in the UK for a Saudi-backed golf tournament, the LIV Golf Invitational Series. The 67-year-old is chief executive of LIV Golf Investments, funded primarily by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund.
Continue reading...Trump Organization has held discussions with Saudi-backed body, Washington Post reports
US golf courses owned by Donald Trump could host events in a hugely controversial new league funded by Saudi Arabia, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.
Citing three anonymous sources, the newspaper said courses in Bedminster, New Jersey, and Doral, Florida, could host events after discussions between the Trump Organization and LIV Golf Investments, a body funded by the Saudis.
Continue reading...Prince Andrew’s 30-year association with the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews has ended, after the club confirmed he is no longer an honorary member. The Duke of York informed the R&A of his decision, which should remove the potential for controversy around the 150th Open due to be staged at St Andrews in July.
The R&A, whose corporate wing presides over the Open, informed members of the situation on Friday morning. A spokesperson for the club in Fife said: “I can confirm that the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews has received notification that the Duke of York will relinquish his honorary membership. We respect and appreciate his decision.”
Continue reading...Some Trumpland observers are convinced that he is in serious legal trouble as New York’s AG investigation of Trump Organizations’s finances intensifies
When Donald Trump announced plans in 2006 to build a golf complex on ancient sand dunes on the Aberdeenshire coast in Scotland he told reporters it was love at first sight. “As soon as I saw it there was no question about it,” he said. It would be the world’s “greatest golf course”.
This week Trump International Scotland became a central element of a case that looks poised to dominate his post-presidential life, and could even put him behind bars.
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Table tennis: The gold medal game in the women’s singles competition is an all-Chinese affair, Chen Meng against Sun Yingsha - the first and second seed. Sun won the first game though (first to seven), and leads 5-4 (first to 11) in the second. If you’re following the broadcast, the world feed commentator is a gem, bringing 10/10 enthusiasm to his task. Just as it should for a contest like this. “It’s like chess and kung fu combined... with a racket!” Love him.
Marta Martyanova, Larisa Korobeynikova, Adelina Zagidullina and Inna Deriglazova are Olympic champions, the latter holding her nerve after a late rally from the French quartet to triumph 45-34.
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That was painful. Oh USGA! But does Rahm care? Of course he doesn’t! He waits patiently, politely, then receives his medal and trophy. He hugs the big pot, a huge grin across his boat, a picture of blissed-out happiness. So nice to see for a player who went through the ringer recently at the Memorial. The golfing gods have settled their debt!
Before the trophy can be handed over, farcical scenes as Mike Davis, the outgoing CEO of the USGA, promises a flyover by a couple of F-18 jets. The planes don’t arrive on cue. They don’t arrive at all. An uneasy silence. Ah, eventually, here they come.
Continue reading...Tiger Woods was driving at speeds up to 87mph (140km/h) in a 45mph zone when he was involved in a serious car crash earlier this year, Los Angeles police revealed during a press conference on Wednesday.
Los Angeles county sheriff Alex Villanueva said the speed was “unsafe for the road conditions” and Woods did not brake in the run-up to the collision, perhaps because he pressed the accelerator instead of the brake pedal in a state of panic. Villanueva said Woods will not receive a citation over the crash and blamed the incident of Woods’s excessive speed and loss of control of the vehicle.
Continue reading...From pools and lidos to tennis courts and golf courses, it has been an action-packed day around England as lockdown regulations are relaxed to allow outdoor sporting activity. People will now be able to meet up legally outside in groups of six or two households and organised outdoor sport can resume
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