How Saudi Arabia took over professional golf - podcast

After months of bitter divisions in the world of professional golf, a major deal has resulted in victory for Saudi Arabia and its bid to influence the future of the sport. Ewan Murray reports

For years professional golf has been a lucrative but fairly placid affair. That all changed with the advent of LIV golf – a new entity that encouraged some of the sport’s biggest names to play its new-format tournaments and sign multi-million dollar contracts. It was lavishly backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and it left the world of professional golf reeling. Friendships ended as players either signed up for the new competitions or decided to stay loyal to their traditional paymasters, the PGA tour.

As golf correspondent Ewan Murray tells Michael Safi, when the two sides put aside their bitter differences last week to announce a merger, it came completely out of the blue. Now with peace agreed and a massive cash injection beckoning, is the future of golf in safe hands?