During the month of February there were two meetings at the White House between the PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, (with Tour representatives) and President Trump. One without Tiger Woods and with Woods; and one without and one with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia, whose coffers are close to $1 trillion. These meetings were aimed at unlocking the negotiations between the PGA Tour and the PIF, which funds the upstart LIV golf tour, and have been going on for nearly two years, since June, 2023, when a “framework agreement” was made to repair the split in professional golf. Trump had said before the 2024 election last November that he could bring these two parties together, solve the impasse, and get the best players in the world together at more events than simply the four major championships. [And he claimed he could do that in a similar way that he could end the war in Ukraine.] But exactly how Trump’s involvement here remains a complete mystery. Mr. Trump is certainly not an impartial, unbiased interested party in this case, observing the PGA Tour vs PIF/LIV negotiations. Since LIV golf began playing actual events in 2022 they have played several tournaments at Trump’s properties, including his Doral resort in Florida. Following the second meeting with Trump, commissioner Monahan, player representative Adam Scott and Tiger Woods signed a statement that read: “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, we have initiated a discussion about the reunification of golf.” After all this time, the wording of “initiated” seems odd. Golf writer Eamon Lynch of Golf Week and The Golf Channel opined that PIF governor Al-Rumayyan “remains determined to keep shoveling cash into the furnace of his own pridefulness,” meaning LIV golf. No telling when these negotiations may end.
The buzz-word in this matter seems to be “reunification.” At present, the best players on the two big tours that are eligible for Official World Golf Ranking (OGWR) points are the PGA Tour and the European Tour (now the “DP World Tour”). LIV tour players are not eligible for OWGR points mainly because LIV tournaments are only 54 holes with no cuts. So, the only time the top players from LIV and the other tours can compete is with the four majors, namely the Masters, U.S. Open, PGA Championship and the Open Championship (aka the British Open), which are not controlled by any tour. Reunification would change that. I’ll provide updates as they are available.
My personal view is that, if there is a solution to bring the PIF/LIV and the PGA Tour together, it would mean the full elimination of LIV and team golf altogether, and the golfers who glommed on to the hundreds of millions of dollars to sign with LIV, would have to qualify to get back on the PGA Tour, along with paying back most of the LIV money in order to establish some form of justice and equity for the players who did remain loyal to the PGA Tour. But, alas, that’s not going to happen. As far as I’m concerned the LIV tour is a non-entity. Are you interested in tuning a Fox channel to watch LIV no-name golfers, like Chich – Po Lee, Federick Kjettrup, Yubin Tang or Caleb Surratt? I don’t care if I never see Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed, Ian Poulter, Bubba Watson, Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia ever play golf again. There are more than enough young, talented and up-and-coming players on the PGA tour, like Jake Knapp, Nick Dunlap, Davis Thompson and Luke Clanton, to pique my interest. Not to mention Scotty Scheffler, Jordan Spieth, Gary Woodland and Ricky Fowler. We have plenty of superb PGA Tour players who provide ample excitement and great golfing to satisfy my tastes. But, of course, I’m “old school.”
