A report from The Guardian said that the PGA Tour deemed the Saudi PIF’s demands for a deal as ‘unacceptable.’
Reunification between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf remains nowhere close as the season’s first major championship is now upon us.
Of course, LIV golfers and tour players can compete side by side at the four major championships, providing a window into what professional golf could be. Fans will see that on full display next week at Augusta National, where 12 LIV golfers will compete among the 96-player field.
But the positive outlook that the future of golf had less than two months ago at Torrey Pines has turned sour. According to The Guardian, the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), the sovereign wealth fund which bankrolls LIV Golf, sought to continue to operate LIV as it has since its inception in 2022. It also called for Yasir al-Rumayyan, the Governor of the PIF, to become a co-chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises, the new for-profit entity for the PGA Tour.
As a part of the deal, the PIF would invest $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, the same amount that the Strategic Sports Group (SSG), a consortium of American sports owners and billionaire businessmen, invested last year.
The tour responded to the PIF’s demands by calling them ‘unacceptable.’
This is reportedly the first correspondence since the PIF and the PGA Tour met at the White House in late February. However, that meeting did not go smoothly, which led Rory McIlroy to say that the PGA Tour “doesn’t necessarily need a [deal]” at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in early March.
McIlroy also said it “takes two to tango,” referencing the PIF’s stance at the negotiation table.
Meanwhile, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan kept it more cordial when talking about the state of affairs at last month’s Players Championship. But Monahan’s tone showed that the PGA Tour currently has the leverage. They will not give in to demands that could diminish the tour’s brand and overall product.
“We appreciate Yasir’s innovative vision, and we can see a future where we welcome him to our board and work together to move the global game forward. As part of our negotiations, we believe there’s room to integrate important aspects of LIV Golf into the PGA Tour platform. We’re doing everything we can to bring the two sides together,” Monahan said in mid-March.
“That said, 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. 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. Our team is fully committed to reunification. The only deal that we would regret is one that compromises the essence of what makes the game of golf and the PGA Tour so exceptional.”
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.