The Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia has hit a brick wall in its efforts to coax significant compromises from the PGA Tour according to Ewan Murray at The Guardian.
Despite reportedly dangling a $1.5 billion investment, the PIF couldn’t bring the two sides nearer to mending their rift, with the first major golf tournament of the season looming just days away.
The PGA Tour’s firm rejection bolsters the growing belief that it’s feeling more secure in its standing. This comes after a rocky spell in which TV viewership initially dwindled in the couple of years following the emergence of the Saudi-supported LIV Tour.
According to insiders, Murray claims, the PIF fired off a letter to the PGA Tour last week, pushing for guarantees that the LIV circuit could keep running and that Yasir al-Rumayyan, its governor, could snag a co-chairman spot at PGA Tour Enterprises. In return, the PIF dangled the cash injection into PGA Tour Enterprises—the commercial outfit born from a seeming truce in the summer of 2023. This sum was meant to mirror a matching $1.5 billion investment from the US-based Strategic Sports Group.
Despite US President Donald Trump hosting a meeting between leading officials from both the PGA Tour and the PIF at the White House last month, rumours quickly began to circulate that the two parties were far from agreement and that al-Rumayyan in particular had been disillusioned at the position Jay Monahan and the PGA Tour had on several issues.
And if Murray’s claim that the PGA Tour replied that both terms – LIV’s continuance and al-Rumayyan’s co-chair were “deemed unacceptable” – it appears that both sides are far from reaching an agreement that many thought was only a matter of time after the shock perceived burying of the hatchet in June 2023.
At The Players Championship, Monahan cited a poll showing 70% of PGA Tour fans support reunification, though only on terms that preserve the Tour’s dominance, while al-Rumayyan who was the major driving force behind LIV’s formation and pumped roughly $5 billion of the PIF’s money into the venture, is not content to see it disappear.
“It takes two to tango,” said Rory McIlroy, who was not present at the White House meeting, but suggested that one side was more willing to deal than the other before going on to claim that the PGA Tour were no longer in the position where a deal was necessary when talking to the press in the weeks that followed.
New LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil, who isn’t part of the negotiation process, echoed McIlroy’s sentiments on the necessity of reaching a compromise ahead of LIV MIami which kicks off today at Trump’s Doral resort in Florida.
“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,” he said.
No official PGA Tour or PIF comments have been issued so far, but with several high-profile LIV players’ contracts believed to be running out and the Masters just around the corner, the pre-tournament press conferences at Augusta National are likely to bring the issue to the fore once again.
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