NORTH YORK, Ontario — The bombshell news that the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund are partnering to create a new global golf entity has brought the question of the Kingdom’s role in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States back into play in the golf world.
Bryson DeChambeau beefed his answer on Tuesday night, and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan did more of the same on Wednesday. On Thursday, Jimmy Dunne went on Golf Channel and raised the bar for outlandish answers to an impossible question.
“I am quite certain – and I have had conversations with a lot of very knowledgeable people – that the people I’m dealing with had nothing to do with it,” said Dunne of the attacks that occurred 22 years ago. “If someone can find someone that unequivocally was involved with it, I’ll kill them myself. We don’t have to wait around.”
With the PIF as its sole funder, LIV Golf has long been criticized as a way for Saudi Arabia to sportswash its controversial human rights record, which includes accusations of wide-ranging human rights abuses, including politically motivated killings, torture, forced disappearances and inhumane treatment of prisoners.
The 9/11 families group has pointed to LIV as a blatant example of sportswashing and has repeatedly cited Saudi Arabia’s role in the 9/11 attacks, including that Osama Bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in the attacks were Saudi citizens.
Here's Jimmy Dunne, one of two people who helped broker the deal between the PGA Tour and the PIF, saying on Golf Channel that if anyone can find someone who was unequivocally involved in 9/11, he'll kill them himself.
This week is surreal.pic.twitter.com/qdK5CzUfSq
— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterCBS) June 8, 2023
Dunne, who made the initial approach to the PIF, came as a surprise given his personal experience on Sept. 11, 2001. His firm was based in offices on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center’s south tower, and 66 of his coworkers died in the terrorist attack that day − including his longtime friend Christopher Quackenbush and mentor Herman Sandler. Dunne would have been there, too, had he not decided to go to an area golf course in an attempt to qualify for the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship.
Dunne’s next sentence after his murderous threat was, “but the reality of it is, is that we need to come together as a people. We have too much divisiveness … Let’s try to understand, let’s try to demonstrate by example.”
Oh, the irony.
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