Tag: Jimmy Dunne

Jimmy Dunne, who helped broker original PGA Tour-PIF deal, named to board of one of golf’s major players

The Wall Street shaker has been named to the board of directors of one of golf’s most influential companies.

Jimmy Dunne, the Wall Street deal maker who helped architect the PGA Tour’s controversial deal with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund and then resigned from the Tour’s Policy Board, has been named as a member of the board of directors of one of golf’s most influential companies.

The West Palm Beach, Florida, resident was named Thursday to the Troon Golf board, which manages nearly 1,000 golf clubs worldwide. He is also the vice chairman and senior managing principal of Piper Sandler, an investment bank and financial services company.

Dunne is a member of Augusta National Golf Club and the president of the exclusive Seminole Golf Club. He’s played rounds with everyone from Phil Mickelson and Jordan Spieth to retired NFL quarterback Tom Brady. In a headline last year, after he was appointed to the PGA Tour’s policy board, one magazine dubbed him the sport’s “ultimate power broker.”

In a call with Golfweek back in May, Dunne explained his decision to leave the PGA Tour’s Policy Board.

“There’s a group that decides things and I’m not in it and I’m not consulted,” he said, referring to the board of the new for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises. “I’m superfluous. It’s time to move on.”

A Long Island native and Notre Dame graduate, Dunne got his foothold on Wall Street by working at Bear Stearns before leaving to co-found the investment banking firm Sandler O’Neill & Partners in 1988. The firm later took up residence on the 104th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center, where 83 of its employees reported to work on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

Dunne would have been among them, but he had traveled to Bedford, New York, that day in an attempt to qualify for the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship. Sixty-six of his coworkers, including his longtime friend Christopher Quackenbush, died in the attack on the South Tower. Golf, quite literally, may have saved his life.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Dunne and his firm were repeatedly profiled by media outlets who spotlighted their resolve as they began to rebuild. “(Osama) Bin Laden set out to kill me and my colleagues,” he told Newsday in 2002. “What would he like us to do: Build a new business, or to quit and run?”

2024 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship
Jimmy Dunne tees off during a practice round prior to the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship 2024 at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)

Here’s more on his background, per a release from Troon:

Dunne began his career on Wall Street working at L.F. Rothschild and later Bear Stearns. He was a co-founder of Sandler O’Neill & Partners, which was acquired by Piper Sandler in 2020. Under his leadership, Sandler O’Neill grew to become the largest independent full-service investment banking firm focused on the financial services sector.

Over the past three decades, he has advised on some of the financial industry’s largest M&A transactions. In addition to serving on Troon’s Board of Directors, Dunne currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees at the University of Notre Dame, and is a board member of American International Group, Inc. (AIG) and Chime Financial, Inc.

“We are thrilled to welcome Jimmy Dunne to Troon’s board,” said Troon President and CEO Tim Schantz in a release. “His leadership, experience, business acumen and passion for golf will help the company continue to touch new areas in and around golf and golf-related hospitality. Jimmy’s commitment to excellence aligns perfectly with Troon’s vision, and we’re confident he’ll have a strong impact on the company.”

Dunne joined the Policy Board in January 2023 at the request of Commissioner Jay Monahan. Six months later, on June 6, the Tour announced a shocking Framework Agreement with the Saudis, who fund the LIV Golf circuit. The deal was forged in a series of top-secret meetings involving Dunne, Monahan and board chairman Ed Herlihy. The deal has yet to be finalized.

“I’m excited to join the Board of Troon and work closely with Tim and the rest of his terrific team. I have always enjoyed playing the Troon golf courses and the more I’ve learned about the entire company, the more impressed I have become by all its offerings. I’m looking forward to helping Troon any way I possibly can,” Dunne added.

Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, Troon has completed 14 acquisitions over the last decade and has also ramped up its offerings to clubs.

Golfweek columnist Eamon Lynch and Tom Schad of USA Today Sports contributed to this reporting.

Lucas Glover rips PGA Tour player directors: ‘They somehow think they’re smarter than the business people’

Glover: “They don’t tell us how to hit seven irons. We shouldn’t be telling them how to run a business.”

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Lucas Glover has concerns with the direction the PGA Tour is headed as a business. He hasn’t been afraid to voice those concerns publicly. On Monday evening, he didn’t hold back on his SiriusXM show, “The Lucas Glover Show,” while reacting to the news of Jimmy Dunne resigning from the PGA Tour Policy Board on Monday on the eve of the 2024 PGA Championship.

“We (golfers) have no business having the majority (on the board). Tour players play golf. Businessmen run business. They don’t tell us how to hit seven irons. We shouldn’t be telling them how to run a business,” he said. “We’re about to launch a huge, huge, huge enterprise and a for-profit company that all the players are gonna own a part of, and we don’t have the smartest possible people there to help us guide us in the right direction. That’s scary.”

He added: “The board situation and the way they’re gonna reach these decisions now is backwards. It’s 100 percent backwards.”

Dunne, who was the central figure in meeting with Saudi Arabia’s PIF boss and LIV Golf chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan that led to the bombshell framework agreement announced June 6, 2023, resigned from the Board on Monday, stating that no progress had been made on a deal and his role had become “utterly superfluous” with the players controlling the majority of the board seats.

Here’s a more complete version of Glover’s comments on the subject with his co-host Mac Barnhardt, a longtime golf agent.

“Yesterday Jimmy Dunne resigns from the board. I’ve known Jimmy for a long time. Blown away,” Barnhardt said. “I don’t know enough to know anything. I’m probably too ignorant of what’s going on to know this, but I’d want Jimmy Dunne in that room. I’m sorry. That’s just the way you gotta feel. And not that I don’t want you golfers in it. I think you golfers have a say in this, but I mean, this is a big sport and a really tough time, and I would want some serious business people sitting around the table.”

“Yeah, me too. And I’m probably gonna irritate my peers and fellow Tour players by saying what I’m about to say,” Glover responded, “but for a long time the players were outnumbered on the board, five to four. And a lot of players thought that it would never be our Tour if we didn’t have the majority. Well, I think we’re seeing why it was that way now. We do have the majority and we have no business having the majority. Tour players play golf. Businessmen run business. They don’t tell us how to hit seven irons. We shouldn’t be telling them how to run a business. And we are running a business now. And we’re all on the same team because this for-profit entity that’s about to launch needs to get it right. It needs to be right. And players that think they know more than Jimmy Dunne, players that think they know more than (Board chairman of the 501-C6) Ed Herlihy, players that think they know more than (chairman of the new for-profit entity) Joe Gorder, players that think they know more than (Tour commissioner) Jay Monahan, when it comes to business, are wrong.”

He continued: “And unfortunately, people like Jimmy are now seeing this and they’re now understanding that their vote actually doesn’t count. The exact same way the players felt before we had the majority. Problem is we need those people because guess what? They went to school for business, not golf. My biggest fear in all this is that it’s gonna turn into the American presidency where nobody that’s actually qualified will actually run for it because they know that it’s fruitless.

“And that’s where we’re headed now with our Board, unfortunately, is because now that the players have a majority and they somehow think they’re smarter than the business people, why are the best business people gonna come help us? And Jimmy just basically said that. And I’m not putting words in Jimmy’s mouth, but I can read and I can also see what’s happening, and I know what’s happening. And it’s scary because we’re about to launch a huge, huge, huge enterprise and a for-profit company that all the players are gonna own a part of, and we don’t have the smartest possible people there to help us guide us in the right direction. That’s scary.”

Glover argued that the Tour needs to revisit its Board setup.

“It’s swayed too far the other way now. And I was always on the fence about the whether the players should have a majority or not. And the last 10 years, and especially the last 18 months, have really opened my eyes that golfers are golfers. Businessmen are businessmen. There’s a big difference. And these guys that play golf for a living that think they know how to run a business, they need to look in the mirror and figure this out because I’m sad to say they’re wrong, and now they’ve run off Jimmy Dunne,” Glover said.

He added: “I’m at the point in my career now and my future and my family’s future hinges on this, these decisions that are about to be made. So that’s why I’ve decided in the last few months to start speaking up. But the Board situation and the way they’re gonna reach these decisions now is backwards. It’s 100 percent backwards. And like I said, a lot of my peers and a lot of other Tour players aren’t gonna agree with me. But the proof’s in the pudding, we had an opportunity to get this done and it didn’t get done. And now we’re losing the people that are the most effective and already had it done to be frank.”

Lynch: Tiger Woods’ old mantra gets new life — whatever you say, say nothing

Woods dodges troublesome inquiries with an enigmatic ease that would have impressed Muhammad Ali.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Through nearly three decades in the public eye, Tiger Woods has remained a consummate corporate cipher, dodging troublesome inquiries with an enigmatic ease that would have impressed Louisville’s own Muhammad Ali. No one has ever said less more often, a muscle he’ll work strenuously while facing inquiries about his work on the PGA Tour’s new subcommittee tasked with talking to the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.

On Monday, independent director Jimmy Dunne resigned from the Tour’s Policy Board and bemoaned a lack of progress in advancing the Framework Agreement with the PIF that he helped architect, the June 6 announcement of which blindsided players (including Woods) and sparked a bitter governance review during which a faction of player-directors repeatedly demanded accountability from those who worked secretly on the deal unbeknownst to the rest of the board. A day after Dunne’s departure, Woods was asked how optimistic he is about a Saudi deal being reached.

“I think we’re working on negotiations with PIF. It’s ongoing; it’s fluid; it changes day-to-day,” he said, revealing as much as a burka. “Has there been progress? Yes. But it’s an ongoing negotiation, so a lot of work ahead for all of us with this process, and so we’re making steps and it may not be giant steps, but we’re making steps.”

Unlike Rory McIlroy, who has said a deal with PIF is in the best interests of the game, Woods hasn’t detailed what resolution he’d like to see, an astute strategy in that it keeps his counterparts wondering if he wants one at all. He was a vocal critic of LIV and allied with McIlroy to reshape the Tour in an effort to prevent more players leaving, but that was before executives performed an about-face on the Saudis to rival that of Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.” Woods acknowledged that he and McIlroy are not so aligned in their thinking now.

“It’s good to see it differently, but collectively as a whole we want to see whatever’s best for all the players, the fans, and the state of golf,” he said. “How we get there, that’s to be determined, but the fact that we’re in this together and in this fight together to make golf better is what it’s all about.”

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Pressed on what he wants to see happen, Woods blocked: “I’m not going to comment. Except that we’re making steps. That’s all I can say.”

Are you personally open to a deal with the Saudis?

“I’m personally involved in the process.”

Dunne called me Monday evening and described his position on the board as having become “superfluous,” describing a ghostly existence in which he wasn’t a decision-maker and wasn’t consulted by those who are — a predictable result of his role in the Framework Agreement. Woods was asked if he agreed with Dunne’s assessment.

“No,” he replied. “Jimmy and the amount of work and dedication that he put into the board and to the PGA Tour, it’s been incredible. It was a bit surprising that he resigned yesterday and just how it all came about, but, no, his role and his help, then what he’s been able to do for the PGA Tour has been great.”

It was a commendable effort at sincerity. Woods’ fellow director, Jordan Spieth, was also at pains to push back on a narrative that players now wield too much power, insisting that good governance has now been established. He used the word “balance” or a derivation thereof 11 times in his Tuesday press conference.

Tiger Woods smiled as his group approached the 5th green during a practice round in the PGA Championship at the Valhalla Golf Course in Louisville, Ky. on May. 14, 2024.

If Woods is opposed to or ambivalent about a Saudi deal, he finds himself now in an awkward position. No one will be collaring PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan during negotiations to raise human rights abuses by the government whose slush fund he runs. Those in the room are determined to treat this dispute as purely commercial in nature. But no matter how artfully it is dressed up — unifying the game for fans, offering clarity to sponsors, safeguarding the PGA Tour — the entire sport will assume enormous reputational risk if it chooses to be in business with a mercurial dictator who dissects dissidents.

Should a PIF the deal happen? If morality matters, absolutely not. The game shouldn’t be leveraged to sportswashers under the guise of unity.

Will a PIF deal happen? It’s more likely than not, since all parties are incentivized to make it happen.

If terms can’t be agreed upon, multiple scenarios become the subject of conjecture. Can the PGA Tour go it alone with private equity? Do those investors have the stomach for financing a battle against the Saudis? Will players try waiting out PIF’s willingness to torch a billion-plus annually on a failed product? Would PIF seek to upend Europe’s strategic alliance with the PGA Tour?

None of those are readily answerable questions, but since they’re questions of commerce, they are a damned sight easier for the powers that be to consider than one simple question of conscience.

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Jimmy Dunne resigns from role on PGA Tour Policy Board: ‘I’m superfluous. It’s time to move on’

In a call with Golfweek, Dunne explained his decision.

Jimmy Dunne, the Wall Street deal maker who helped architect the PGA Tour’s controversial deal with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund last summer resigned from the Tour’s Policy Board on Monday. Dunne informed his fellow board members in a letter sent at 5 p.m.

In a call with Golfweek, Dunne explained his decision. “There’s a group that decides things and I’m not in it and I’m not consulted,” he said, referring to the board of the new for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises. “I’m superfluous. It’s time to move on.”

Dunne joined the Policy Board in January 2023 at the request of Commissioner Jay Monahan. Six months later, on June 6, the Tour announced a shocking Framework Agreement with the Saudis, who have been funding the LIV Golf circuit. The deal was forged in a series of top-secret meetings involving Dunne, Monahan and board chairman Ed Herlihy.

Dunne later testified before a Senate subcommittee about the deal when Monahan was on a leave of absence from the Tour.

“During my testimony at the Senate hearing, I said it was my intention to cast my vote alongside the Player Directors if a final agreement was reached with the PIF. Since the players now outnumber the Independent Directors on the Board, and no meaningful progress has been made towards a transaction with the PIF, I feel like my vote and my role is utterly superfluous,” Dunne wrote in his letter. “I believe that history will look favorably on this outcome and the very real opportunities now afforded the Tour.”

2022 Alfred Dunhill Links
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland embraces Jimmy Dunne on the 18th green during a practice round prior to the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on the Old Course St. Andrews on September 28, 2022, in St Andrews, Scotland. (Photo by Oisin Keniry/Getty Images)

The backlash to the deal and the secrecy surrounding it has been intense among some players for almost a year, including several who sit on the Policy Board.

Dunne said his resignation is effective immediately. “I wish everyone the best,” he said.

Phil Mickelson uses PGA Tour board member’s quote to call his shot for LIV Golf’s future

“I’m excited about who’s coming for next year and over time, we’ll just keep getting better,” said Lefty.

DORAL, Fla. – One of the last people you’d expect Phil Mickelson to quote after a lost match at the 2023 LIV Golf Team Championship would be a PGA Tour board member, right? Well, that’s precisely what happened Friday at Trump National Doral.

Mickelson, the captain of the HyFlyers GC, got drubbed by Smash GC’s Brooks Koepka, 6 and 4, in Friday’s quarterfinal round of the upstart circuit’s $50 million finale. After the round, when asked about his quote earlier in the week that he “knows” more talent is coming to LIV Golf, Mickelson doubled down and invoked a quote from PGA Tour board member Jimmy Dunne.

During a congressional hearing to discuss the groundbreaking framework agreement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – LIV’s financial backer – Dunne said if LIV continued to lure just five PGA Tour players per year to its ranks then “in five years, they can gut us.”

Mickelson refused to give any names or detail how many new players may be joining, but he couldn’t help but smile when talking about the new blood joining his team.

“I’m excited about who’s coming for next year and over time, we’ll just keep getting better and better and getting better and better players and that’s the game plan and I love the commitment. I love that I’m a part of it,” Mickelson told Golfweek after his match. “I know that, just like Jimmy Dunne said in Congress, like it’s exactly what’s gonna happen.”

Similar claims were made around Trump National Doral last year about an influx of new talent joining for 2023, and that amounted to the likes of Dean Burmester, Danny Lee, Sebastian Munoz, Thomas Pieters, Mito Pereira and Brendan Steele, who, with all due respect, don’t quite move the needle in LIV’s direction. Mickelson believes the framework agreement opens the door for better talent to make the jump to LIV.

“The reality is I’ve been fielding calls, as we all have, from players that are free agents to PGA Tour players to DP World Tour players that want to come over and the spots probably going to be filled by the time the qualifying tournament is here,” Mickelson said earlier in the week. “I think the merger talks allow for it. I think it kind of opens the door for it, yeah.”

The offseason transfer window opens Monday, and LIV officials envision four to six spots being open across its current 12 teams. With its shotgun start format, the league can accommodate up to 15 teams, which would open the door for more players to join its ranks. Until then, we wait and see.

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5 things we learned from ‘LIV and Let Die: The inside story of the war between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf’ excerpt

Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and more were discussed in the 3,000-word excerpt.

The two-and-a-half-year battle for professional golf supremacy between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf has been the game’s biggest story since Tiger Woods stormed onto the scene nearly 30 years ago.

Backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the circuit threw its money around and disrupted the sport, forming a chasm that divided players and fans alike.

The turbulent time has been featured in a new book from Alan Shipnuck, titled “LIV and Let Die: The Inside Story of the War Between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.” A 3,000-word excerpt from the book, set to be released on Oct. 17, 2023, was posted on the Fire Pit Collective on Wednesday and details everything from the first letter sent by then-Golf Saudi CEO Majed Al-Sorour to the framework agreement that’s still yet to be passed.

Here’s what we learned from the excerpt (you can pre-order the book here).

What you need to know from the Senate subcommittee hearing involving PGA Tour-PIF agreement

Here are some of the best nuggets we found out during the Senate subcommittee hearing.

Tuesday is set to be another monumental day in the history of professional golf.

PGA Tour Chief Operating Officer Ron Price and board member Jimmy Dunne were sworn in at a Senate subcommittee hearing in Washington D.C. to discuss the proposed deal between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which is the main financial backer of LIV Golf.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is the chairman of the committee and has been publicly critical of the deal, which will unite the two once-warring factions in golf under the same commercial umbrella.

In excerpts of his opening remarks that were released on the eve of the hearing, Blumenthal says this isn’t simply about golf, but rather “how a brutal, repressive regime can buy influence – indeed even take over – a cherished American institution simply to cleanse its public image.”

Here are some of the best nuggets we found out during the Senate subcommittee hearing.

‘I’ll kill them myself’: PGA Tour board member Jimmy Dunne gives wild answer to Sept. 11 question

“I am quite certain … that the people I’m dealing with had nothing to do with (Sept. 11),” said Dunne.

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.”

MORE: How WhatsApp, 9/11 victims and ‘distractions’ led Dunne to make the PGA Tour deal

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.

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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