The PGA Tour desires one premier circuit working in males’s skilled golf.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund desires two — and that is why the edges’ talks to reunify the game appear to be again at sq. one.
Sources confirmed to ESPN that the PGA Tour has rejected the PIF’s most up-to-date supply to take a position $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, the tour’s for-profit entity, which got here with the caveat that the rival LIV Golf League would stay intact.
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The PIF, which has funded LIV Golf since its inception in 2022, additionally desires its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, to function co-chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises’ board. Former Valero Power 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 beforehand advised ESPN that the LIV Golf League persevering with in its current type was a nonstarter for the PGA Tour, which prefers to have the highest golfers on the earth competing on one circuit.
Sources mentioned the PIF has dug in its heels in negotiations and needs workforce golf to be a part of the game’s future ecosystem if the edges attain a deal. The PGA Tour has tried to supply options to the PIF that would come with some kind of iteration of LIV Golf in future schedules, equivalent to having workforce competitions at worldwide venues within the fall.
“We won’t accomplish that in a approach that diminishes the energy of our platform or the very actual momentum we now have with our followers and our companions,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan mentioned eventually month’s Gamers Championship. “So whereas we have eliminated some hurdles, others stay. However like our followers, we nonetheless share the identical sense of urgency to get to a decision.”
The newest correspondence comes on the heels of the edges’ four-hour assembly on the White Home on Feb. 20, which included Al-Rumayyan, Monahan, Woods and PGA Tour participant director Adam Scott. U.S. President Donald Trump had beforehand met with Monahan and Scott in Washington on Feb. 4.
Trump advised reporters on Air Drive One on Thursday that he hopes the competing excursions can attain a deal. Trump was flying to Miami to satisfy with LIV Golf officers at Trump Nationwide Doral, which he owns.
“In the end, hopefully, the 2 excursions are going to merge. That’ll be good. I am concerned in that too,” Trump advised reporters on the flight to Miami, in accordance with the Related Press. “However hopefully we will get the 2 excursions to merge. You’ve gotten the PGA Tour and the LIV Tour. And I feel having them merge can be an amazing factor.”
Revealed studies indicated the PIF can have injected $5 billion into LIV Golf by the tip of this yr. The circuit that celebrates 54-hole tournaments, no cuts, shotgun begins and workforce golf has struggled to achieve footing within the U.S. when it comes to company sponsors and TV scores.
Earlier than this week’s LIV Golf League match at Trump Nationwide Doral in Miami, LIV Golf League captain Brooks Koepka mentioned that he had hoped the breakaway circuit can be additional alongside in its fourth season.
Koepka was one among a number of PGA Tour stars lured to LIV Golf with assured contracts price greater than $100 million. Previous main champions Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith are among the many others who left the PGA Tour and had been suspended by Monahan.
Monetary data filed by LIV Golf’s United Kingdom-based firm, which operates its tournaments exterior the U.S., indicated it had practically $400 million in working losses in 2023. Monetary data for occasions within the U.S. weren’t obtainable.
New LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil advised reporters on Tuesday that his league did not must make a take care of the PGA Tour to outlive.
“If the deal may help develop the sport of golf, I will bounce in with two toes,” O’Neil mentioned. “Do we now have to do a deal? No. It will be good to do a deal, as long as we’re all centered on the identical issues.
“So do we now have to do a deal or want a deal, no matter phrase you utilize, depart that to anyone smarter than me. I’ll say I really like what we’re doing, I really like our prospects. I really like the expansion in three months. I do know what’s coming within the subsequent three months. And I really like the place we’re.”
O’Neil is not concerned within the PIF’s negotiations with the PGA Tour.
“The fact of the way in which I see the world is I see the LIV Golf League with plenty of hope and plenty of future,” O’Neil advised ESPN. “I hope that we discover a option to get extra alternatives to have the very best gamers on the earth enjoying collectively. It may not be in a pleasant, neat bow, or it could be. We’ll see.”
The PGA Tour and the PIF sued one another in federal courtroom, however the lawsuits had been dropped once they signed a framework settlement on June 6, 2023, to type an alliance that might reunify the game. That deal expired on the finish of 2023, however the sides have continued to attempt to hammer out a deal the previous two years.
In January 2024, the PGA Tour and Strategic Sports activities Group, a consortium of U.S. professional sports activities groups and others, reached a deal to have SSG make investments as a lot as $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises.
