[PHOTO: Harry How]
The PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund continue to discuss a possible alliance unifying professional golf, and last week PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan informed membership that a task force will dictate discipline for LIV Golf players interested in returning. However, according to LIV Golf’s frontman, those with LIV aren’t interested in coming back.
In a tweet posted over the weekend regarding potential penalties facing LIV Golf members who seek to return to the tour, Mickelson wrote the matter is “a colossal waste of time”.
“Not a single player on LIV wants to play PGA Tour,” Mickelson said on Twitter. “It would require a public apology and restitution to LIV players for paying millions to Clout Media to disparage all of us. A better topic is future sanctions for the many players who now come to LIV.”
Mickelson, it should be noted, received disciplinary action from the PGA Tour for attempting to recruit members to the Saudi-backed circuit in March 2022. In the fallout of his controversial comments about Saudi Arabia and leveraging the tour, Mickelson said he was taking a personal leave of absence from the game during this time. According to the lawsuit brought by Mickelson and other LIV golfers against the tour, Mickelson applied for re-instatement in June 2022, a request that was denied after Mickelson violated tour regulations by participating in LIV Golf’s inaugural event in London. The complaint says that the tour then extended the suspension for Mickelson’s participation in the LIV Golf Portland event, “deferring even the mere opportunity to apply for re-instatement until after March 31, 2024.”
The lawsuit and the tour’s countersuit were both dropped this June as part of the tour’s framework agreement with PIF.
https://twitter.com/PhilMickelson/status/1685444915365572608
The framework deal only broadly outlines how the former rival entities intend to co-exist, with LIV Golf’s future still undetermined. LIV Golf chief executive Greg Norman has been telling LIV players and staff members that LIV Golf will return for 2024 and beyond, but there is no guarantee the circuit will continue, and Norman is not mentioned anywhere in the agreement. The new entity formed by the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF will, however, “undertake a full and objective empirical data-driven evaluation of LIV and its prospects and potential and will make a good faith assessment of the benefits of team golf in general, and PIF, the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour will work together in an effort to determine how best to integrate team golf into PGA Tour and DP World Tour events going forward.” There is also a mention of the parties in question cooperating to help secure Official World Golf Ranking consideration for LIV Golf events.
The ambiguous nature of LIV’s role in the new entity has raised the question if there is a future for LIV. But as Mickelson pointed out the week after the US Open, those writing LIV’s obituary are premature.
“Everything over the past couple of years that we’ve been told by Greg and everybody on LIV has come to fruition, so we have a lot of confidence in what they have been saying to us,” Mickelson said in late June. “We don’t really feel the need to publicly posture our position. There’s really no need for us to talk about things publicly but to just let it play out.”
As for the apology, Mickelson is referring to Clout Media’s work with 9/11 families against LIV Golf. However, Clout dropped the PGA Tour as a client after the tour’s alliance with PIF.
Mickelson, 53, finished T-2 at this year’s Masters. He is ranked 43rd out of 52 players in LIV Golf’s individual season rankings.
