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Mark Schlabach
The PGA Tour wants one premier circuit operating in men’s professional golf.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund wants two — and that’s why the sides’ talks to reunify the sport seem to be back at square one.
Sources confirmed to ESPN that the PGA Tour has rejected the PIF’s most recent offer to invest $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, the tour’s for-profit entity, which came with the caveat that the rival LIV Golf League would remain intact.
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The PIF, which has funded LIV Golf since its inception in 2022, also wants its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, to serve as co-chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises’ board. Former Valero Energy CEO Joe Gorder is chairman of the PGA Tour Enterprises board, and Tiger Woods serves as vice chairman.
The Guardian of London reported that the PGA Tour replied to the PIF in a letter on Monday.
Sources previously told ESPN that the LIV Golf League continuing in its present form was a nonstarter for the PGA Tour, which prefers to have the top golfers in the world competing on one circuit.
Sources said the PIF has dug in its heels in negotiations and wants team golf to be part of the sport’s future ecosystem if the sides reach a deal. The PGA Tour has tried to offer solutions to the PIF that would include some sort of iteration of LIV Golf in future schedules, such as having team competitions at international venues in the fall.
“We will not do so in a way that diminishes the strength of our platform or the very real momentum we have with our fans and our partners,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said at last month’s Players Championship. “So while we’ve removed some hurdles, others remain. But like our fans, we still share the same sense of urgency to get to a resolution.”
The latest correspondence comes on the heels of the sides’ four-hour meeting at the White House on Feb. 20, which included Al-Rumayyan, Monahan, Woods and PGA Tour player director Adam Scott. U.S. President Donald Trump had previously met with Monahan and Scott in Washington on Feb. 4.
Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Thursday that he hopes the competing tours can reach a deal. Trump was flying to Miami to meet with LIV Golf officials at Trump National Doral, which he owns.
“Ultimately, hopefully, the two tours are going to merge. That’ll be good. I’m involved in that too,” Trump told reporters on the flight to Miami, according to the Associated Press. “But hopefully we’re going to get the two tours to merge. You have the PGA Tour and the LIV Tour. And I think having them merge would be a great thing.”
Published reports indicated the PIF will have injected $5 billion into LIV Golf by the end of this year. The circuit that celebrates 54-hole tournaments, no cuts, shotgun starts and team golf has struggled to gain footing in the U.S. in terms of corporate sponsors and TV ratings.
Before this week’s LIV Golf League tournament at Trump National Doral in Miami, LIV Golf League captain Brooks Koepka said that he had hoped the breakaway circuit would be further along in its fourth season.
Koepka was one of several PGA Tour stars lured to LIV Golf with guaranteed contracts worth more than $100 million. Past major champions Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith are among the others who left the PGA Tour and were suspended by Monahan.
Financial records filed by LIV Golf’s United Kingdom-based company, which operates its tournaments outside the U.S., indicated it had nearly $400 million in operating losses in 2023. Financial records for events in the U.S. weren’t available.
New LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil told reporters on Tuesday that his league didn’t have to make a deal with the PGA Tour to survive.
“If the deal can help grow the game of golf, I’ll jump in with two feet,” O’Neil said. “Do we have to do a deal? No. It would be nice to do a deal, so long as we’re all focused on the same things.
“So do we have to do a deal or need a deal, whatever word you use, leave that to somebody smarter than me. I will say I love what we’re doing, I love our prospects. I love the growth in three months. I know what’s coming in the next three months. And I love where we are.”
O’Neil isn’t involved in the PIF’s negotiations with the PGA Tour.
“The reality of the way I see the world is I see the LIV Golf League with a lot of hope and a lot of future,” O’Neil told ESPN. “I hope that we find a way to get more opportunities to have the best players in the world playing together. It might not be in a nice, neat bow, or it might be. We’ll see.”
The PGA Tour and the PIF sued each other in federal court, but the lawsuits were dropped when they signed a framework agreement on June 6, 2023, to form an alliance that would reunify the sport. That deal expired at the end of 2023, but the sides have continued to try to hammer out a deal the past two years.
In January 2024, the PGA Tour and Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of U.S. pro sports teams and others, reached a deal to have SSG invest as much as $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises.
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