TULSA, Okla. — The LIV Tour at Cedar Ridge Country Club has attracted thousands of fans to Green Country this week.
One spectacle its organizers don't want to show is the criticism behind its core financial ties to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
OU Director of Middle Eastern Studies Joshua Landis told 2 News Saudi Arabia has an authoritarian monarchy that’s been condemned internationally for torture and possible war crimes.
In the case of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, its regime is accused of murdering even American citizens.
“He was lured to the Saudi embassy in Turkey, where he was going to get married," Landis said. "And he was dismembered and killed, and it's believed that this was that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave the order for it.”
The Crown Prince also helps lead the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which pours hundreds of millions of dollars into the star golfers of the LIV Tour.
The backlash of the LIV Tour goes back to the War on Terror, in which documents unveiled in recent years suggest that the Saudi-born 9/11 hijackers got funding from members of the Saudi regime, enraging survivors and their families who then protested the golf event at a Trump-owned golf course in 2022.
But some here at home don’t think Oklahomans should worry about the politics.
“I think it’s great for business, for communities. I think it’s positive,” Ira Skerbitz said.
Broken Arrow commuter Mary Councilman, however, does see this weekend’s tournament as sports washing.
“Anything that would have any ties to 9/11 is absolutely gonna raise concern, and for the lack of better statement, boil the blood of any American,” Councilman said.
But Landis, who has studied the Middle East and Saudi Arabia for decades, said this tournament is possible through a change in the country’s social policies.
Change that the U.S. government has already accepted.
“As soon as Biden became president, he reversed his campaign promises to make Saudi Arabia a pariah," Landis said. "And he went to Saudi Arabia, and he did his famous fist-bump with Mohammed bin Salman, and they hugged and made up. And Saudi Arabia remains America’s main Arab partner. They are investing tons of money strategically to make their country competitive and to attract international businesses...Oklahomans should be all for it. It’s gonna bring money to Oklahoma. It’s gonna bring competition.”
“This is good for a frontier state like Oklahoma,” Landis said.
2 News reached out multiple times but did not hear back from the Cedar Ridge Country Club's tournament director Frank Billings for this story.
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