The wildest demand Saudi Arabia made as part of its potential investment (takeover?) in the PGA Tour: get LIV Golf's Saudi boss a Masters green jacket

• Congress grilled the PGA about its bid to merge with LIV Golf and accept Saudi Arabian investment.
• During the hearings, some of the demands made during negotiations were revealed.
• One of the things the Saudis asked for was membership to Augusta National, which is not part of the PGA.

In any high-powered merger deal, there are bound to be some odd quirks and weird demands. And as details continue to trickle out about the potential combination of the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league, one of the negotiation points stands out.

On Tuesday, PGA Tour officials were hauled in frontof the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for a three-hour hearing on its announced merger with LIV Golfand the role the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) would have in the combined league. The PGA made it clear that despite the fanfare, the initial announcement of a deal between the two sides was premature and negotiations are still underway.

As PGA Tour board member Jimmy Dunne put it, "There is simply an agreement to try to get to an agreement."

Despite billions of dollars on the line, the deal doesn't sound like a sure thing at all, but the hearing did offer some interesting tidbits about what the combined tour would look like, including:

• Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy would be given ownership of two teams in LIV Golf and they would commit to playing in 10 LIV events.
• A "World Golf Series" team event would be held every year with the championship in Saudi Arabia.
• Two PGA Tour events would be sponsored by either Aramco, the Saudi oil giant, or the PIF. One of those would be played in Saudi Arabia.
• LIV Golf players would be given points in the Official World Golf Rankings.
• LIV Golf would only play in the fall and not overlap with the heart of the PGA Tour season.

But perhaps the most bizarre ask from the PIF that was revealed during the hearing has to do with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the LIV Golf chairman. According to the documents obtained by Congress, the head of PIF wants a green jacket, which is given to members of Augusta National Golf Club. 

In the documents sent to Congress, one of the requests from the PIF was for the PGA to try and get Al-Rumayyan membership at the legendary Augusta National Golf Cub and The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. What makes the demand even stranger is that the PGA Tour almost certainly does not have the power to grant this.

While the PGA has close ties to both venues — Augusta National famously hosts the Masters every year, and St. Andrews is part of the rotation for hosting The Open Championship in the UK — they are private golf clubs.

As Business Insider's Stephanie Asymkos wrote, Augusta National is likely the most exclusive golf club in the US and its membership is shrouded in mystery. It is believed there are only about 300 members and new memberships are typically reserved for when somebody leaves or dies.

"You don't seek membership at Augusta," she wrote. "If Augusta wants you, it will find you. There's no waitlist. It's well-known among the golf community that if the Augusta powers that be so much as hear an expression of membership interest, that's enough to get your name permanently crossed off of the list.

PIF already has investments in Uber, Meta, Microsoft, Boeing, Disney, and the English Premier League soccer club Newcastle United, where Al-Rumayyan is the chairman. Gaining membership to Augusta National not only grants him entry to one of the most exclusive sports groups in the world, but also another way to access the other members, which include many business leaders and Wall Street titans. 

So maybe the PGA Tour could ask the two clubs for a membership position for Al-Rumayyan, but there does not appear to be any reason they would have to comply. After all, despite the initial fight between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, none of the defecting players were being withheld from competing in the majors. 

We don't know if this demand is still on the table, but who knows, maybe someday we will see the head of the PIF wearing a green jacket during the Masters.