[PHOTO: Keyur Khamar]
Something has clearly changed. Whatever promising developments were achieved in a February 4 meeting at the White House between the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf League apparently have evaporated after a follow-up meeting with US president Donald Trump on February 20.
On Tuesday, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan pushed back on the notion that there may have been a setback when he was joined by board members Adam Scott and Tiger Woods in negotiations with Yassir Al-Rumayyan, head of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia that backs LIV. Monahan called the second meeting a “huge step” forward. However, Rory McIlroy countered on Wednesday at Bay Hill Club that “the landscape might have looked a little different [before that meeting] than it does now”.
He further echoed a comment Jordan Spieth made last year at Pebble Beach where the tour announced that Strategic Sports Group had invested $US1.5 billion into a new for-profit company, PGA Tour Enterprises. That the tour, at this point, with recent sponsorship renewals by Valspar and 3M and long-term commitments from other sponsors, possibly doesn’t need a deal with PIF.
“I don’t think it’s ever felt that close,” McIlroy said of a proposed deal that dates back to June 2023 with the framework agreement between the tour and PIF. “But it doesn’t feel like it’s any closer.”
That’s not to say that a reunification of professional men’s golf isn’t desirable. The tour’s Fan Forward initiative surveying its core audience and other supporters shows that by a 70-30 margin support for bringing back LIV players. But apparently that seems less likely in the near term.
“I think the narrative around golf… I wouldn’t say needs a deal, I think the narrative around golf would welcome a deal in terms of just having all the best players together again. But I don’t think the PGA Tour needs a deal,” McIlroy said at Bay Hill Club during a pre-tournament press conference for the Arnold Palmer Invitational. “I think the momentum is pretty strong. As you say, TV’s been good, TGL’s been, hopefully, pretty additive to the overall situation. And yeah, I would say, again, I answered this question at Torrey Pines [three] weeks ago, the landscape might have looked a little different then than it does now over these past couple of weeks, and I think a deal would… still be the ideal scenario for golf as a whole. But from a pure PGA Tour perspective, I don’t think it necessarily needs it.”
Asked what has changed in these past few weeks, McIlroy said flatly, “Look, I think it takes two to tango. So if one party is willing and ready and the other isn’t, it sort of makes it tough.”
McIlroy later told another reporter that negotiations “have taken a step back”.
This is more like a few giant leaps back from Woods’ assessment of the progress made after the February 4 meeting.
“We’re in a very positive place right now,” Woods said at the Genesis Invitational during a television interview on CBS Sports. “We had a meeting with the president. Unfortunately, I had some other circumstances that came up, but Jay and Adam, they did great during the meeting, and we have another subsequent meeting coming up.
“I think that things are going to heal quickly,” Woods continued. “We’re going to get this game going in the right direction. It’s been heading in the wrong direction for a number of years and the fans want all of us to play together, all the top players playing together and we’re going to make that happen.”
Monahan and Scott expressed similar optimism after the February 4 meeting in which both Woods and Al-Rumayyan joined via teleconference with Trump. All parties were on hand for the meeting on February 20. Those with knowledge of that meeting suggest it is the PIF leader who took a harder line in the talks.
At the Genesis, McIlroy seemed to have changed direction from his more hard-line stance against LIV Golf and extolled the virtues of reunification. He still supports that, as well as a hefty investment from PIF. He wouldn’t necessarily prefer one over the other.
“Their billion dollars would be nice, too,” he said, grinning, before going into how LIV players might be re-incorporated in tour fields.
“I gave a lot of thought to it a couple of years ago, but less now,” said the world No.2-ranked player. “You could create exemption categories that you try to capture who you want to capture – major winners in the past three years, plus Players champions, I don’t know. But, yeah, that’s, again, not my department.”
