Golf at new crossroads with LIV, PGA set to meet

The next frontier in the future of golf could be determined this week at Ponte Vedra Beach in Florida with power brokers from LIV Golf and the PGA Tour reportedly set to meet as early as Monday.

US PGA Tour policymaker Peter Malnati, one of six players on the PGA Tour Policy Board, admitted during the Players Championship in the southern US state that the best players in the world being divided between the established PGA tour and upstart LIV Golf, funded by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), was not a sustainable future for the sport.

"It would be even better if we had Jon Rahm [recent LIV defector and reigning Masters champion] here. I'll just say it. It would be an even better win," Malnati said. "That's something that we, as a membership and leaders of the membership, need to figure out.

"How do we make this happen for people to come back and do it in a way that has some semblance of fairness... that can at least somewhat pass the sniff test and get us to a place where... we have all of the best players in the world? Something needs to happen for our sport," he added.

Saudi investment challenging sports

A meeting, potentially attended by Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who governs the PIF and is involved with a number of Saudi sporting projects including the ownership of Premier League club Newcastle United, is reportedly on the cards for Monday. But some players appear frustrated with the leaders of the PGA Tour.

"I'm not sure that I can say much more other than we're being encouraged to potentially meet with [the Saudis]," said Jordan Spieth, a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board along with Malnati, Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, Webb Simpson and Patrick Cantlay. "But at the same time we probably feel like our membership should know timing and what could happen."

Saudi Arabia, through the PIF and sponsorships, has invested enormously in a variety of sports in the last few years. The football World Cup is secured for 2034, the Olympics are in the Gulf state's sights and tennis is wrestling with similar issues to golf. Critics accuse the country of using sports to launder its reputation, while Saudi officials say sport is part of their Vision 2030 project to modernize the country and lessen its reliance on oil.

The financial draw of LIV Golf — often stretching to hundreds of millions of dollars — has been enough to attract several top players, including Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Sergio Garcia, Rahm and Martin Kaymer. The PGA reacted by banning LIV golfers from its events, which include the sport's most prestigious tournaments: The Masters, The British Open, the US Open and the PGA Championship.

Tradition vs. payday

The battle between tradition and the newcomers has often been bitterly fought. Northern Irish golfer Rory McIlroy has often been at the forefront of LIV criticism. Despite a recent softening of his stance, he reiterated earlier this month that he would not join the LIV Tour.

"It's not for me," McIlroy said. "I'm too much of a traditionalist. I love winning golf tournaments and looking at the trophy and seeing that Sam Snead won this trophy or Ben Hogan or Gene Sarazen or Jack Nicklaus or Gary Player, Tiger Woods, Nick [Faldo], whoever it is. The people that came before me. That, to me, is a big deal in our game."

Relations between the two rival tours have thawed over the last year, most notably with the announcement in June 2023 that LIV Golf, the PGA and its European arm, the DP World Tour, had merged as "a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity."

But players from the LIV tour still face considerable obstacles in qualifying for the prestigious PGA Tour events because LIV golfers cannot earn ranking points needed to qualify, with previous champions of each tournament handed an exemption. Garcia, for example, can play at the Masters after winning it in 2017 as a PGA Tour player, but not in any of the other three top events.

Nevertheless, those in positions of power are remaining relatively tight-lipped about whether this will change. Public statements from Al-Rumayyan are rare, and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said earlier this week that talking about details "really is not in the best interest of the PGA Tour and our membership and for PIF" but did confirm that the two parties are  "engaged, we're making progress."

Spotlight on golf

Monahan met earlier this year with Al-Rumayyan but added that negotiations are "accelerating" despite the skepticism from many players on the PGA Tour.

"While we have several key issues that we still need to work through, we have a shared vision to quiet the noise and unlock golf's worldwide potential," he said.

Sports existing with competing federations is far from unprecedented, with boxing and darts among those with competing major titles and players on different tours. But as one of the first sports to have been disrupted by Saudi investment in this fashion, golf's handling of the divides it has caused is under the spotlight.