I don’t fault Dustin Johnson the $125 million. I don’t blame Brooks Koepka for cashing in. I don’t know Phil Mickelson well enough to pass judgment on his ethics, and I could care less about the future of the PGA Tour.
If the Saudis bought Augusta National, I wouldn’t lose much sleep. But an LIV Golf tournament, backed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, at Pumpkin Ridge?
In Fallon Smart’s backyard?
That’s beyond the pale.
In August 2016, Fallon was struck and killed on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard by a 21-year-old driving his gold Lexus at nearly 60 mph. She was 15, a rising sophomore at Franklin High.
Fallon Smart
Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah, a Saudi national, swerved around the cars that had stopped so Fallon could cross the street at its intersection with 43rd Avenue.
Noorah had already racked up 17 parking tickets and a suspended drivers’ license in his two years at Portland Community College. Near graduation, he didn’t think the bills would ever come due.
The Saudis proved him right, spiriting him out of the country before he could stand trial on charges of manslaughter, felony hit-and-run and reckless driving.
He hopped into a black GMC Yukon XL two weeks before his June 2017 trial. He cut off his tracking monitor at a sand-and-gravel yard, then vanished. Inside a week, he was back in the kingdom, the Saudis would quietly inform Homeland Security … 13 months later.
This happens quite often when Saudi students face charges of rape, sexual assault or hit-and-run. Shane Dixon Kavanaugh of The Oregonian/OregonLive has reported the story for years. For just as long, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has demanded we hold Saudi Arabia accountable: “Anything less amounts to a craven betrayal of Americans’ interests on behalf of a murderous, autocratic regime.”
“Anything less” endures, by and large, even if Jamal Khashoggi is no longer around to report it.
The Saudis still have us over an oil barrel. They still grease our legendary arms industry. Between 2015 and 2020, the U.S. sold weapons worth $64.1 billion to the kingdom to wage war in Yemen. The Biden administration continues to ship air-to-air missiles to Riyadh to “improve the security of a friendly country.”
When you’re dealing in billions, it’s easy to make friends and influence the millionaires on the PGA Tour. Greg Norman, the crown prince at LIV Golf, lanced the outrage over the Saudi-backed tour by noting that 23 PGA Tour sponsors already do $40 billion in business with the kingdom.
The memorial erected for Fallon on the morning after her death in 2016.
For years, the Saudis have thrown millions at Formula One, World Wrestling Entertainment and horse racing. Mohammed bin Salman and the Saudis’ Public Investment Fund own 80% of Newcastle United, and few Premier League soccer fans seem to care.
Therein, the panic at the PGA Tour. The PGA – now offering far bigger purses to its wavering pros – is hardly a sympathetic character. It has no control over the four majors, by far the most popular tournaments on golf’s calendar. It is decrying competition on a stage where winning is everything and eyes are always on the prize money.
If Mickelson, Norman and Saudi Arabia bankrupt the PGA, so be it. Bankroll a tournament at a private Trump club in Bedminster, N.J. – site of a LIV Invitational in July – and I won’t say a word.
But Pumpkin Ridge?
“The fatal hit-and-run of Fallon Smart on Hawthorne Boulevard is 20 miles from the Saudi-affiliated tournament in North Plains,” Wyden says. “That’s what I’d ask people to think about.”
Escalante Golf, the Texas-based owners of Pumpkin Ridge, thought about it, then told the Saudis, “Sign here.”
Wyden has spent five years fighting to adjust the scales of justice in Fallon’s name. He pushed a bill through the Senate requiring the FBI to declassify information on the Saudis’ role in helping its citizens disappear while awaiting trial or sentencing in a U.S. court.
He’s pushed President Joe Biden’s administration to do a better job than his predecessor in holding the Saudis accountable. “There’s a lot more to do,” Wyden says. “I see very little evidence that the Saudis have helped us do anything to lower gas prices at the pump, and I see a lot of evidence of their human-rights abuse.”
"Forever Loved and Remembered"
And Wyden held a press conference Saturday morning with three of the 11 Washington County mayors who denounced the LIV event, arguing, “It’s really gutsy of those 11 mayors to say we don’t want the Saudi blood money in our community.”
Fallon Smart’s community. The small corner of the world where her family has grieved so privately since that August morning on Hawthorne.
“I’m trying to use my voice to speak out for Fallon Smart’s family,” Wyden says. “Any Oregonian who shares that goal can do the same.”
You can remember her name. You can drive more carefully on the streets of her city. And you can stay the hell away from Pumpkin Ridge in the coming week.
-- Steve Duin
stephen.b.duin@gmail.com