The PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced that they have merged under an agreement to unify the game of golf, on a global basis.
The parties signed an agreement that combines PIF’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf) with the commercial businesses and rights of the PGA TOUR and DP World Tour into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity to ensure that all stakeholders benefit from a model that delivers maximum excitement and competition among the game’s best players. However, PGA Tour Inc. will remain as a 501(c)(6) tax-exempt organization.
PIF will also make a capital investment into the newly formed entity to facilitate its growth and success. The new entity, name TBD, will implement a plan to grow these combined commercial businesses, drive greater fan engagement and accelerate growth initiatives already underway.
With LIV Golf in the midst of its second, groundbreaking season, the PGA TOUR, DP World Tour, and PIF will work together to best feature and grow team golf going forward.
The merger will also put an end to all pending litigation between the participating parties and also put in place a fair and objective process for any players who desire to re-apply for membership with the PGA TOUR or the DP World Tour following the completion of the 2023 season and for determining fair criteria and terms of re-admission, consistent with each Tour’s policies.
PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan will be the chairman of the new entity, and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan will be its CEO. The PGA Tour will appoint a majority of a new board of directors and hold the majority voting interest. PIF, meanwhile, will have exclusive rights for further investments and a right of first refusal on any new capital injected into the entity.
“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” Monahan said in a statement.”
“Going forward, fans can be confident that we will, collectively, deliver on the promise we’ve always made — to promote competition of the best in professional golf and that we are committed to securing and driving the game’s future.”
“There’s just so much opportunity, and it’s opportunity that we have not been able to activate, but we do now. And we’re going to do it in a highly disciplined and rigorous way. And when you look at our sport, the PGA Tour has never been stronger than it is right now.”
However, PGA Tour players were surprised and not happy about the new development.
“Any time you’re taking money from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, that’s probably a difficult decision to make, and it’s one that Jay and the team definitely struggled with for a long time and ultimately came to the decision that they’re gonna take the investment and try to get some of the disruption out of the game,” PGA Tour winner Brendon Todd told Golf Channel.
“I think for us out here on the PGA Tour that were loyal and stuck with it, I think we’re probably anxious and a little frustrated to hear that potentially some of the LIV players could come back to our tour. It doesn’t quite seem fair to a lot of us, I’m sure.”
“I think the most powerful moment was when a player quoted PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan from the 3M (Open) in Minnesota last year when he said, ‘As long as I’m commissioner of the PGA Tour, no player that took LIV money will ever play the PGA Tour again,'” Johnson Wagne, a PGA Tour veteran said. “It just seems like a lot of backtracking.”
Monahan spent more than an hour on Tuesday afternoon, explaining to players why he changed his mind about taking Saudi funds in a surprise collaboration, saying it ultimately was for their benefit.
“As time went on, circumstances changed,” he said in a conference call after the meeting. “I don’t think it was right or sustainable to have this tension in our sport.
“I recognize everything I’ve said in the past. I recognize people will call me a hypocrite. Any time I’ve said anything, I’ve said it with the information I had, and I said it with someone trying to compete with our tour and our players.”
Their merger is coming less than two weeks before the third major championship of the men’s golf season – the U.S. Open. For parts of 2022 and 2023, the majors were the only times that LIV Golf players commingled with the PGA and DP World Tour players.
Strong hostility grew between the factions, with Phil Mickelson who often speaks as the de facto player leader for LIV and directing accusations of collusion at the PGA Tour and other governing bodies, and McIlroy strongly defending the PGA Tour and criticizing LIV many times.
McIlroy had not yet commented on the merger but has scheduled a meeting with the press on Wednesday as the defending champion of the Canadian Open.
Mickelson, for his part, tweeted “Awesome day today” with a smiling emoji.