When it comes to power brokers in the world of golf and business — Jimmy Dunne is pretty heavy duty.
Jimmy is set to join the PGA Tour’s Policy Board in 2023 and well, that’s not good news for LIV.
Truth be known, Jimmy Dunne is no fan of the Saudis — and for good reason. His New York investment firm was housed in the Twin Towers of New York city on that fateful September 11th. The firm, Sandler, O’Neill and Partners had 83 souls in the offices that morning — only 17 made it out alive. Herman Sandler, Dunne’s mentor, and Chris Quackenbush, his best friend since childhood, both perished.
Dunne was out of the office, trying to qualify for a USGA tournament. What he did afterward was extraordinary — he rebuilt the firm and took care of the families who lost their loved ones when the buildings collapsed.
Fast forward to 2022. James J. Dunne III is the President of Seminole Golf Club on the North Palm Beach/Jupiter border. On any given weekend in the winter months, you can find people like Ed Herlihy (Chairman of the Tour Policy Board), incoming USGA President Fred Perpall, Seth Waugh, the CEO of the PGA of America; Pete Bevacqua, the chairman of the NBC Sports Group; Mike Davis, the former CEO of the USGA; and Mark Flaherty, a Tour board member. Other members you might recognize include Tom Brady, Nick Price and the course architect Rees Jones.
Dunne can wield power and influence without leaving the Seminole locker room. And now he will have one of the 10 votes on sensitive PGA Tour policy decisions and other matters. Dunne’s title is “independent director.” Dunne describes his duty as one of “thinking about the players, the sponsors, the fans, the television deals, all of that.”
Dunne is true-blue PGA Tour all the way. “I am 100 percent supportive of the PGA Tour and behind it,” Dunne said in a recent interview.
He has no desire to work with LIV and even less of a desire to have anything to do with the face of LIV — Greg Norman. “I wouldn’t want to work for Greg Norman. I like people who are absolutely credible, more worried about fact than sizzle, and are reliable,” Dunne said of Norman (aka The Lamest Commissioner In All The Land).
Dunne’s main belief in the PGA Tour is the same as most who back the PGA Tour in its ongoing battle with the LIV exhibition series.
That belief is that the greatness of the PGA Tour is the same as other major sports in America — it is democratic and meritocratic. Play well, shoot good scores and you make money and if you’re good enough, you hoist trophies.
“Playing the PGA Tour is like playing center field for the New York Yankees,” Dunne said. “Do that for 10 years and everything else will take care of itself.” Dunne admits his admiration for the likes of Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, and Ben Hogan and Lee Trevino. Dunne is a firm believer in success and excellence. He has a great deal of influence with current high-profile PGA Tour players and part of his job is too keep them in the PGA Tour family.
Dunne describes his appointment to the Policy Board as a “war-time deal.”
“If guys are asking me what they should do, I point to the money you can make on the PGA Tour, what it means to play in majors, playing on Ryder Cups and President Cups, playing in the FedEx events,” Dunne said. “Yeah, you can make a lot of money playing LIV Golf. But you can make a lot of money playing on the PGA Tour, and you can look back at what you’ve done with real satisfaction.” Where to play, Dunne said, “is a pretty binary decision.”
Dunne doesn’t rail publicly against the Saudis, despite the fact of what happened on September 11.
But he will tell you quickly when asked: “The fact is, I would not want to work for them.”
And with the recent revelation that LIV Chief Operating Officer Atul Khosla left the venture, it’s apparent his feelings fall in line with Dunne’s.
