The PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, facing pressure from the Justice Department about their ambitions for a new company to shape global golf, have in recent days abandoned a crucial provision of their tentative deal: a promise not to recruit each other’s players.
The decision — and the Justice Department’s choice to raise concerns so early in a review that could lead to a government attempt to block the transaction — reflected the fragility, uncertainty and turbulence surrounding the deal.