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Less than 50 miles from where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood, and just three miles from Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey, the voice of Alison Crowther still cracks.

It has been more than two decades since her son Welles, a former Boston College lacrosse player who became an equities trader for Sandler O’Neill and Partners, was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks when one of the hijacked planes struck the South Tower. He was 24 years old.

Though Welles’ life was later memorialized in Tom Rinaldi’s gripping book, “The Red Bandana,” Crowther’s pain hasn’t ceased since that devastating day in 2001.

This week, however, Crowther’s heartache has been further amplified by the arrival of the LIV Golf tour to the tristate area. Beginning Friday, the controversial Saudi-backed circuit — which has shaken professional golf to its core — will hold its second event on United States soil at Trump National.

“My father was a scratch golfer,” Crowther told The Post on Tuesday at a press conference held by 911familiesunited.org at Clarence Dillon Library in Bedminster. “My husband was a banker, so [golf] is what they did. Welles loved golf, too.”

Though golf has long been part of Crowther’s family, she found the decision made by some of the sports’ biggest names to defect to LIV “appalling.”

“If I could talk to [the players from LIV Golf] I would that say I’m horrified they could be bought. 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.”

Much of Crowther’s outrage stems from the fact that LIV Golf — including players’ guaranteed big-money contracts — is bankrolled by the Public Investment Fund, which is essentially the financial arm of the Saudi Arabian government. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia.

Last year, the FBI released hundreds of pages of newly declassified documents exploring the connection between the Saudi government and the 9/11 attacks. Those documents arrived two months after the FBI released a 16-page document that unveiled a memo detailing “significant logistic support” two of the hijackers received in the U.S.

Saudi Arabia also has been widely accused of using its involvement in golf and other athletics to “sportswash” its human rights atrocities, including the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and its mass execution of 81 men for various offenses this past March.

Crowther is hardly alone in her anger toward LIV Golf and its connection to what is essentially “blood money.”

Terry Strada, the national chair of 911familiesunited.org, and whose husband, Tom, was a golf pro at Meadow Brook Country Club on Long Island before becoming a bond broker at Cantor Fitzgerald, said Tuesday that she is “appalled” over the players’ willingness to be “exploited” by Saudi Arabia for what amounts to nothing more than a big paycheck.

“To those players who have ignorantly toed the kingdom’s line speaking from their talking points and asking the public to focus on what the Saudis are doing now, or calling the allegations against the kingdom tenuous at best, you have become mouthpieces for the kingdom and perfect examples of how sportswashing works,” she said. “What [Saudi Arabia] is doing with LIV Golf is, they’re throwing billions of dollars into a PR stunt. They don’t care [about golf].”

That is why Matthew Bocchi, a New Vernon native who was 9 years old and the oldest of four children when his father, John, was trapped on the 105th floor of the North Tower on 9/11, thinks it’s important to continue to speak out against Saudi Arabia’s involvement with LIV and other sports.

“I’m aware there are corporations in the U.S. funded by Saudi money; their involvement in this country is no mystery,” Bocchi told The Post. “This is setting a precedent we don’t want set. I’m a big sports fan. If this can happen so easily and so close to home, who’s to say this isn’t going to continue and they’re not going to get involved in other sports?

“The proximity of this tournament — I grew up 15 minutes from here. I went to so many funerals here. It ignites [the emotions] all over again. I respect a lot of the golfers. Is the money worth it? Do they need $200 million from the Saudis? Maybe some of them do. But they need to realize this is a fight we’ve been having for years. It’s hurtful. I respect Rory [McIlroy], who has spoken out against it and said this is sportswashing. I have a lot of friends who are golf fans. They feel the same way. This is going to set a tone that we don’t want.”

Crowther, Strada, and Bocchi aren’t the only ones speaking out this week.

Dozens of family members and survivors of the 9/11 attacks are planning to protest down the street from the tournament on Friday morning. Brett Eagleson, a founder of 9/11 Justice, also hopes to call attention to the connection between the Saudi government and the 48-player tournament, which includes Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, and Dustin Johnson, among others.

Of the more than 3,000 individuals who were killed on 9/11, 750 were from New Jersey. The survivors and the loved ones left behind have a message for Mickelson and the other professionals participating this week.

“I would ask [Mickelson] to at least consider what example you are setting for our youth; that money can buy anything,” Strada said. “That’s a horrible example to set. I would like him to think about what his legacy is going to be, what all of their legacies are going to be. They took money from the kingdom that murdered 3,000 people on American soil.”