April 4 (UPI) — The standoff between the PGA Tour and rival LIV Golf League continues after the PGA sunk an investment offer from Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, or PIF, offered the PGA Tour an investment of $1.5 billion into the for-profit PGA Tour Enterprises on Thursday, but the PGA would only go for that if LIV would go away.
The PIF’s offer, on the other hand, stipulated that LIV would live on and remain in action, and now a unification of the two sides is not likely to happen anytime soon as the PGA wants the world’s top golfers solely signed to a single circuit.
Another stumbling block is that the PIF wants its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, to serve as co-chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises’ board, along with current chairperson Joe Gorder, who serves above vice chairperson and golf icon Tiger Woods.
PIF will reportedly have spent $5 billion on LIV Golf by the end of 2025, but despite the investment the league has had a hard time catching on in the United States in terms of TV ratings and corporate sponsorships.
Financial documents filed by LIV Golf’s U.K.-based company, which operates its tournaments outside the U.S., indicate it had nearly $400 million in operating losses in 2023, while similar records for its events in the U.S. weren’t available.
The PIF also wants team golf to be a part of world class golf in some fashion, to which the PGA reportedly would be OK with as some version of LIV Golf down the road, such as at international venues come autumn, but, “We will not do so in a way that diminishes the strength of our platform,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said at the Players Championship in March.
Even the world’s most powerful golfer was unable to influence a deal, as Al-Rumayyan, Monahan, Woods and PGA Tour player director Adam Scott met at the White House in February, after Monahan and Scott met with avid golfer and U.S. President Donald Trump earlier that month.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One Thursday he hopes the competing tours can reach a deal while on his way to Miami to meet with LIV Golf officials at his Trump National Doral resort.
New LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil told the press Tuesday that LIV can survive without a deal brokered with the PGA Tour, but “If the deal can help grow the game of golf, I’ll jump in with two feet.”
O’Neil told ESPN that “The reality of the way I see the world is I see the LIV Golf League with a lot of hope and a lot of future,” and added, “I hope that we find a way to get more opportunities to have the best players in the world playing together. It might not be in a nice, neat bow, or it might be. We’ll see.”
