How controversial Jimmy Dunne brokered PGA Tour LIV Golf bombshell

Jimmy Dunne is aware of a factor or two about mergers and acquisitions, as he labored alongside PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan to dealer the deal with the Saudi Arabian Public Funding Fund.

Dunne additionally has private ties to the Sept. eleventh terrorist assaults, which has put him in a precarious place contemplating the response from 9/11 Households United this week.

“I’m fairly sure and have had conversations with lots of educated folks that the folks that I’m coping with from [Saudi Arabia] had nothing to do with 9/11,” Dunne mentioned on the Golf Channel Thursday.

“And if somebody can discover somebody that unequivocally was concerned with it, I’ll kill him myself. We don’t have to attend round.”

Picture by David Cannon/Getty Photographs

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Dunne took the time without work from work to play within the U.S. Mid-Amaetur qualifier, per Golf Digest.

On the time, he labored within the South Tower and misplaced numerous mates and colleagues.

“Each day, [9/11 is] the very first thing I take into consideration, [I think about it] a number of occasions through the day, and it’s the very last thing I take into consideration at evening is that,” Dunne added. “That has not modified since that day, and I’m not alone in that. I might assure you that each a kind of members of the family has that very same situation. It’s only a actuality of how unbelievably unhappy and terrible that day was.”

This seemingly about-face from Dunne has left many on-line calling him an equal hypocrite to Monahan.

ABC7’s Alex Wilcox tweeted, “The hypocrisy from Jay Monahan is disgusting – however idk how Dunne appears to be like himself within the mirror.”

The Wall Avenue banker now serves because the Vice Chairman and Senior Managing Principal at Piper Sandler, a big funding financial institution. The Lengthy Island, New York native can also be the Vice Chairman of the PGA Tour coverage board.

Therefore, he and Ed Herlihy, one other tour coverage board member and one of many nation’s high mergers and acquisitions attorneys, labored with Monahan to dealer the deal.

“As a lot as I preferred the folks I handled, the sport of golf is just too vital; the legacy of the PGA Tour is just too vital,” Dunne mentioned. “The folks we have now in place have an excessive amount of expertise that we have now no want, no want – there is no such thing as a method on God’s inexperienced earth that we’re going to surrender management.”

As part of the deal, Monahan will now oversee each the PGA and LIV Golf Excursions. Whether or not he chooses to disband LIV and re-instate former PGA Tour members stays to be seen.

The PIF additionally has the “proper to first refusal,” which means they assist select the place the Tour will make investments and who to associate with earlier than anybody else.

Apart from that, just one certainty stays: a ton of unknowns.

Picture by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Photographs

Dunne additionally serves because the President of the distinguished Seminole Golf Membership, the place he has performed with many notable {golfing} celebrities, resembling Rory McIlroy and his father, Gerry.

Dunne and McIlroy shared related positions on the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour a yr in the past.

“I don’t prefer it after they say they’re ‘rising the sport,’” Dunne mentioned in an interview with Sports activities Illustrated final summer season. “That’s crap. I don’t even prefer it after they say, ‘I’ve to do what’s finest for my household.’ I’m wondering what number of of these guys, the approach to life that they had been residing was so horrible that their household wanted them to do that. Simply say, ‘I’m at a degree in my profession the place I wish to make 5 occasions as a lot cash towards a lot weaker competitors and play much less.’ Simply inform the reality. Don’t cowl it with lots of crap.”

A lot has modified up to now yr, as males’s skilled golf grew extra divided between the PGA and LIV Excursions. Lawsuits emerged, gamers from opposing leagues jabbed at one another, and even the commissioners denounced one another.

“We would have liked to come back collectively as a folks. Now we have an excessive amount of divisiveness,” Dunne mentioned two days after asserting the deal. “There’s a cut-off date when it’s important to say, ‘let’s attempt to get to know each other. Let’s attempt to perceive; let’s attempt to exhibit by instance.’

“I imagine we should always not run away from our variations, and we should always get to know one another and make it tough in order that the acute, vicious, immoral elements of the folks of the world, we don’t must have a household take care of what we handled 20-plus years in the past. As terrible because it was for me, it was method worse for others. I can’t think about if certainly one of my youngsters had been concerned. I’ve actual empathy, however I’d love to do one thing about it, which begins with speaking.”

It’s exhausting to sq. these two sentiments from Dunne.