PGA Tour and Saudi-backed LIV extend deadline to finalise merger deal

WASHINGTON – The PGA Tour was unable to finalise a definitive

partnership agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF)

ahead of a Dec 31 deadline but wants to extend negotiations into 2024 given “active and productive conversations”, according to a memo to players by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan.

The PGA Tour has made “meaningful progress” in negotiations with Strategic Sports Group (SSG), the consortium of US-based professional sports team investors that has entered the fray. “These partnerships will allow us to unify, innovate and invest in the game for the benefit of players, fans and sponsors,” Monahan wrote.

He noted the PGA Tour’s goal for 2024 is to reach agreements with SSG, PIF and the Europe-based DP World Tour, bringing them on board as minority co-investors in PGA Tour Enterprises, the new for-profit entity the PGA Tour, PIF and DP World Tour have set up to house their commercial operations.

As talks with the PIF, the main financial backer of LIV Golf, dragged on, outside investor interest in the PGA Tour

has since heated up by way of SSG,

an investment group headlined by Fenway Sports Group.

ESPN reported the SSG would invest US$3 billion (S$3.96 billion) into the new entity, which would be financed to more than US$7 billion if the PIF investments were also included in any deal.

The framework agreement with the PIF, which came after the PGA Tour lost a handful of high-profile names to LIV Golf, divided the golfing world and irked some US lawmakers, who blasted the deal as “sportswashing”, where the kingdom uses sports to improve its reputation as it faces criticism of its human rights record.

The expiry of the deadline comes after reigning Masters champion Jon Rahm, who had long been a consistent voice against LIV Golf,

agreed on Dec 7 to join the rival league

for a deal worth around US$500 million. It served notice that the Saudi-backed series and its plans for a 2024 campaign could pull even more talent from the PGA Tour, as it did in 2022 for its inaugural season.

For now, the tours will run independently, with LIV Golf holding the majority of its 14-event 2024 season outside the United States and the PGA Tour returning to a calendar-year schedule for the first time since 2012. It will also unveil a radical new approach as five of its eight limited-field signature events will have no cuts, a move made partly as a reaction to LIV Golf’s structure.

Meanwhile, Patrick Cantlay has told Golf Magazine that he met representatives from LIV Golf as recently as 2023, but does not anticipate leaving the PGA Tour.

“It’s a personal calculation based on your values, your priorities, et cetera,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a surprise that there’s a certain type of player that’s tended to go over there, on the whole. For me? I have no plans on joining LIV. I don’t plan on joining LIV.”

Cantlay served on the PGA Tour policy board for the first time in 2023, which did not stop LIV from continuing to reach out. “I declined offers,” he said. “Pre- and post-joining the board. And the most recent offer I got, I declined in the same meeting that my management team brought it to me.”

He dismissed reports he is “in control” of the PGA Tour as it navigates its future amid negotiations with the PIF and said: “If you just look at the facts that are out there, it would be impossible for any one player to take control.”

As for the speculation that the US Ryder Cup team room was divided, with Cantlay and his friend Xander Schauffele on the side of players demanding financial compensation, he refuted the claims.

“I love those events,” the 2021 FedEx Cup champion said. “They’re some of my favourite weeks and memories in golf and I care a ton about the Ryder Cup and winning it for the United States.

“There was zero divide. If you asked all the assistant captains, the captain, the players, they would tell you it’s one of the closest locker rooms they’ve been a part of.”
REUTERS, AFP