Donald Trump Will Play in LIV Golf Pro-Am at Bedminster

The former President had a major taken away from his Bedminster course, but this week it hosts LIV, which he called an 'incredible investment' for Saudi Arabia.

BEDMINSTER, N.J. – Former President Donald Trump will play in the pro-am Thursday preceding the LIV Golf Invitational Series event at his Trump National Golf Club Bedminster.

Trump’s son Eric, along with major champions Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau, will join him in the pro-am group, which will be played without spectators. The $25 million, 54-hole event begins Friday.

This is the third event in the controversial startup series which has seen the likes of Johnson, DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Sergio Garcia and others join with guaranteed contracts and the ability to play for huge purses. In the process, they have either resigned their PGA Tour memberships or been suspended.

Trump, who owns a number of high-end golf courses throughout the world, will also see the season-ending LIV Golf event played at his Doral course near Miami.

Bedminster was supposed to be the site of this year’s PGA Championship, but the PGA of America moved the event to Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the wake of the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

The decision to move was reached within four days of the incident, and announced later that month while Trump was still in office. Justin Thomas won the event at Southern Hills.

PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh has said that the decision was made due to a “political situation not of our making’’ and that he feared an affiliation with Trump would hurt the PGA of America.

Trump, whose organization reached an undisclosed financial settlement with the PGA of America, has been critical of the organization for making the move. He has recently taken to criticizing the PGA Tour and lauded players for joining LIV Golf, sometimes mixing up that the PGA of America and PGA Tour are different organizations.

On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump described the PGA Tour as being disloyal and said that players who don’t take the guaranteed money will be left out if there is ever a merger or understanding between the two groups.

In an interview Monday with the Wall Street Journal, Trump said he believed the PGA Tour has “taken advantage’’ of players and there is “tremendous anger’’ over the way they have been treated.

LIV Golf, which will become a league of 14 tournaments next year, has caused a divide in the game. Tiger Woods spoke two weeks ago at the British Open about how he believed those joining the circuit were turning their backs on the organization that helped them gain fame and fortune.

Woods said at St. Andrews that the Tour “has given us the ability to chase after our careers and to earn what we get and the trophies we have been able to play for and the history that has been a part of this game.’’

In the Wall Street Journal interview, Trump downplayed the human rights issues that have been associated with the Saudi Arabia regime which is funding LIV Golf through its Public Investment Fund.

“I think LIV has been a great thing for Saudi Arabia, for the image of Saudi Arabia,’’ Trump said. “I think it’s going to be an incredible investment from that standpoint, and that’s more valuable than lots of other things because you can’t buy that – even with billions of dollars.’’

Trump’s Doral course was the host of a PGA Tour event for more than 50 years, but the tournament moved to Mexico following the 2016 event due to the inability to find a title sponsor for the tournament, which was a World Golf Championship event.

At the time, Trump was running for president – he had yet to become the Republican nominee – when then-PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem announced a move to Mexico City because it had secured a sponsorship commitment from a media conglomerate.

Trump criticized the move as being political – he threw in a jab at the Tour, saying it hoped considering the move to Mexico City that it had “kidnapping insurance’’ – but Finchem and the Tour maintained the move was all business as it had no one to sponsor the tournament in Miami.

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