LIV Golf got good news on Tuesday when Augusta National announced that it has no plans to ban players on the controversial Saudi-bankrolled tour from next year’s Masters, but not everyone plans to greet them with open arms.
A prominent September 11 group, 9/11 Families United, said hours after the announcement from the exclusive club that it plans to protest at the tournament next April.
“We are calling on Augusta National to reconsider their open-door policy to the LIV golfers,” the statement read, in part. “If they are welcomed with open arms, we will be at their front door to protest in April.”
This only marks the latest instance the group has spoken out against LIV Golf and its players.
Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley Augusta National via Getty Image
Terry Strada, center, is the chair of 9/11 Families United. AFP via Getty ImagesIn June, the organization sent a scathing letter to Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed and others expressing outrage toward the golfers participating on the circuit and accused them of sports washing and “betraying” the United States. The group also protested outside the gates of the league’s tournament at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster in July.
“If I could talk to [the players from LIV Golf] I would that say I’m horrified they could be bought,” Alison Crowther, whose son Welles was killed in the attacks and story was later memorialized in a book, told The Post then. “It’s not like [Phil Mickelson and others] are struggling [financially]. That they could be morally compromised by money from a source such as this, I find it appalling. I find it a testament to their own character, which is unsatisfactory.”
Recently declassified documents have connected Saudia Arabia to the 9/11 attacks. The country has also been widely accused of using its involvement in golf and other athletics to sports wash its human rights atrocities, including the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
It also won’t be the first time that a protest has found its way to Augusta National.
Phil Mickelson is a three-time Masters champion. Getty Images
Martha Burk, chair of the National Council of Women’s Organizations in 2003, talks with the media during Masters week demonstrations outside the gates of Augusta National. Getty ImagesIn 2003, Martha Burk, then-chair of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, famously protested the club over not having any women members. William “Hootie” Johnson, then the club chairman, responded by saying Augusta National wouldn’t be “bullied, threatened, or intimidated,” and said that women may indeed one day be invited to join Augusta, but “not at the point of a bayonet.”
Augusta National, which didn’t admit its first black member until 1990, admitted its first women members — former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and business exec Darla Moore — in 2012.
On Tuesday, current Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley said in a statement that qualification criteria for the tournament are reviewed each April but also noted, “We have reached a seminal point in the history of our sport. At Augusta National, we have faith that golf, which has overcome many challenges throughout the years, will endure again.”
Augusta National had no further comment when contacted by The Post about 9/11 Families United’s plans to protest at the tournament.
Terry Strada, the organization’s chair and whose husband Tom was killed in the World Trade Center attack, meanwhile, told The Post: “It’s vital that the public know to what extent Saudi Arabia played in murdering thousands of Americans on American soil on Sept. 11, 2001. Holding a protest at Augusta National will elevate our voices on the world stage and allow the truths we know about the Kingdom be told.”






