PGA Tour Hires Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Lawyer to Lead Fight Against LIV in Congress
Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have called for Greg Norman, LIV Golf’s CEO and commissioner, to be quickly removed, but the PGA Tour has hunkered down for a long court battle against Saudi Arabia by hiring its own big gun in Washington.
According to the political news site Axios, one of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy’s closest friends and confidants, Jeff Miller, and his firm Miller Strategies, has been retained by the PGA Tour to fight for the Tour in the halls of Congress.
Miller, the firm’s CEO, has spent the last 25 years as a major fundraiser in the Republican Party, including during the recent 2022 election cycle and for the 2020 Donald Trump campaign.
The Miller Strategies website describes the firm as “a full-service government relations firm dedicated to effective strategy and advocacy, and uniquely positioned to help clients navigate the complexities of the Administration and Congress.”
Sources in the Axios article state that Miller will be tasked to promote the PGA Tour and its interests in Washington, including “shining a light on the competition.”
Where that light might focus is speculative, but as LIV continues on a path that the PGA Tour perceives as not only competitive but also destructive, having a few friends in Washington can’t hurt. Especially if that friend is the close buddy of the likely soon-to-be speaker of the House, the most powerful Republican in the country.
Of course, the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Saudi Arabia and LIV Golf have their own advisors, including Ari Fleischer from the George W. Bush White House and former Republican U.S. representative Ben Quayle.
Norman took a trip to the Capitol in September, where the former British Open champion and LIV commissioner outlined the benefits of LIV Golf but found himself buried in the quicksand of Washington while trying to defend “sportswashing” and the Kingdom’s human rights abuses. It’s clear there is no love lost between Congress and the Saudis.
Hiring Miller is a clear escalation of a feud that has exploded throughout 2022 between the Kingdom and the Tour. It appears that ’23 will be filled with more sniping between Saudi Arabia or its proxy, LIV Golf, and the PGA Tour, not only in the courts and between players that were onetime friends, but at the highest levels of government.