The third event of the controversial Saudi Arabia-backed tour is taking place in Bedminster, New Jersey, a course owned by Trump.
A source from LIV Golf told Portal that Trump and his son Eric were playing with 2020 US Open winner DeChambeau and the two-time Major winner during Thursday’s Pro-Am ahead of the first round, which starts the next day Johnson will open.
The LIV golf tour has been widely criticized for offering huge swaths of money to players from Saudi Arabia, a country with a dismal human rights record, to leave traditional golf tours. Earlier this month, Trump told golfers to join the LIV Golf series and “take the money now.”
“All these golfers who remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA in all its various forms will pay a heavy price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you will receive nothing but a huge ‘thank you’ from PGA officials in the millions of dollars a year,” Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social.
“If you don’t take the money now, you won’t get anything after the merger, just saying how smart the original signers were.”
His comments come as a group of 9/11 survivors said they were “appalled” by the “offensive, disrespectful and hurtful” LIV pre-event golf tour in New Jersey, which was about 50 miles (80 km) from the site of the Terrorist attack takes place away from death.
Terry Strada, chairman of 9/11 Families United – a coalition of families and survivors of the 2001 terrorist attacks – said at a news conference near Bedminster course on Tuesday that playing such a tournament so close to the site of the worst terrorist attack in American history is wrong.
Players have also been criticized for abandoning the established PGA Tour and DP World Tour in search of staggering cash payouts.
Allegations that the Saudi government was complicit in the attacks of September 11, 2001 have long been controversial in Washington. Fifteen of the 19 al Qaeda terrorists who hijacked four planes were Saudi nationals, but the Saudi government has denied any involvement in the attacks.
The Congressional 9/11 Commission said in 2004 that it “found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded al-Qaeda.”
Still, victims’ families have pressed for further disclosures, and last year the FBI released a document detailing the FBI’s work investigating alleged logistical support provided in Los Angeles by at least one Saudi consular officer and a suspected Saudi intelligence agent to two kidnappers .
In response to the criticism, LIV Golf told CNN in a statement: “As we have said throughout, these families have our deepest sympathy.
The 9/11 issue is just one of several criticisms of the LIV Golf series.
The team-based LIV series, led by former world No. 1 Greg Norman, is backed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia – a sovereign wealth fund chaired by Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia – and has pledged $250 million in prize money.
Tournaments are held over 54 holes instead of the PGA Tour’s 72 holes, and there are no players who are sidelined during tournament play.
The huge sums of money to be won and the less demanding requirements spurred a number of golfers – many in the twilight of their careers – to leave the PGA Tour and join LIV, including six-time Major winner Phil Mickelson, four-time Major champion Brooks Koepka and former world No. 1, Johnson.