Get in the hole: The PGA Tour and LIV’s Saudi backers have a deal – but there’s one holdup
The biggest question in golf over the past 12 months has also been the most repetitive: What’s taking them so long?
When the PGA Tour announced a stunning alliance with the Saudi backers of LIV Golf that it had spent months battling on and off the course, the plan was for the two sides to have a final agreement by the end of the year.
That is, the end of last year.
Ever since they committed to striking a deal, there has been no public sign of headway.
At times, it has seemed as if the former warring enemies were struggling to come to terms – or even that things had quietly fallen apart.
The biggest question in golf over the past 12 months has also been the most repetitive: What’s taking them so long?
Quietly, though, the two sides have made significant progress and have actually reached an agreement for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to invest more than a billion dollars in the PGA Tour, people familiar with the matter said.
Yet that investment hasn’t been formally unveiled because it’s in front of the US Justice Department, which had already been investigating the golf industry over potential antitrust violations.
If it goes through, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund would pour $US1.5bn ($2.35bn) into PGA Tour Enterprises in return for a minority stake.
And while the sides still have numerous issues to work out in order to achieve fans’ dreams of reunifying the top players in the sport, things are now looking as bright as ever that the deal will withstand antitrust scrutiny and allow the two sides to proceed.
While they await a nod from the Justice Department that they can go ahead, the sides know there’s a new administration about to enter office – and president-elect Donald Trump hasn’t been shy about wanting to usher through a deal.
Before he had even finished naming his cabinet, Trump was playing a round of golf with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan at Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach. A day later he had the head of the Saudi sovereign wealth-fund, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, sitting next to him ringside at a UFC event in New York.
Trump said ahead of the election that it would take him “the better part of 15 minutes to get that deal done”. Soon, his Justice Department will be in a position to do just that – by signalling that it won’t object to the Tour and PIF moving ahead with their agreement.
Since launching LIV in 2022, the Saudis spent billions to gain a foothold in the golf world.
The controversial new circuit lured many of the biggest names in the sport such as Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka with offers of enormous paydays.
It also sent the PGA Tour scrambling. The two circuits sued and countersued one another, creating a bitter divide at the top of the pro game.
That animosity is what made it so stunning when the two sides agreed to join forces last year, with an agreement to end litigation and reach terms on a full pact by the end of 2023.
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As the calendar flipped to 2024, though, that deal never arrived. Hopes of watching DeChambeau regularly tee it up against the likes of Rory McIlroy and the other stars who remained with the PGA Tour seemed to drift further and further away.
In reality, the sides did come to an agreement over the course of the year. The problem is that it wasn’t just a two-way negotiation. The Justice Department was already interested in the PGA Tour for potential anticompetitive behaviour.
When the Tour announced it was going into business with its biggest rival – one that had already accused the Tour of acting as a monopoly – it meant that any pact would inevitably be heavily scrutinised.
In some ways, it’s no surprise that the Tour and the Saudis came to a deal. Each had something to offer the other: PIF had money, the Tour had a successful golf business.
Despite LIV’s star power and deep pockets, it has struggled to gain traction with fans or come up with anything that approaches a sustainable business model.
Now the sides are optimistic that the incoming Trump administration could greenlight a deal and accelerate a thorny reunification process.
In some ways, settling a financial investment was the easy part – they’ll still have to figure out how to reintegrate the players and stitch the game back together..
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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