PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan stated he met with President Donald Trump on the White Home this week because the tour strikes nearer to finalizing a long-sought funding cope with the Saudi Arabian backers of rival LIV Golf.
Monahan stated Thursday in an announcement he and Adam Scott, one of many participant administrators on the PGA Tour board, met with Trump and requested him to become involved within the negotiations “for the nice of the sport, the nice of the nation, and for all of the nations concerned.”
“We’re grateful that his management has introduced us nearer to a closing deal, paving the best way for reunification of males’s skilled golf,” Monahan stated.
The assertion was signed by Monahan, Scott and Tiger Woods, who’s vice chairman of the business PGA Tour Enterprises. It didn’t say Woods was on the assembly, nor was it clear who requested for the assembly.
The PGA Tour and the Public Funding Fund of Saudi Arabia first agreed to a deal in June 2023, which ended the antitrust lawsuits between them. However that framework settlement drew the eye of the Justice Division, and the 12 months ended and not using a deal in place.
The tour and PIF have been assembly for almost a 12 months. Trump, simply 10 days after he was elected, invited Monahan to play golf at Trump Worldwide in West Palm Seashore, Florida, on Nov. 15.
Trump stated on the “Let’s Go!” podcast on the eve of the election that “it might take me the higher a part of quarter-hour to get that deal carried out.”
“I’m actually going to work on different issues, to be trustworthy with you,” Trump stated on the podcast. “I believe we now have a lot larger issues than that. However I do suppose we must always have one tour and they need to have the perfect gamers in that tour.”
The tour has been holding the Justice Division knowledgeable of its negotiations for the final a number of months because it makes progress on an funding cope with PIF.
After the deadline for the unique framework settlement with PIF expired on the finish of 2023, the tour signed with Strategic Sports activities Group, a consortium of North American sports activities house owners spearheaded by Fenway Sports activities Group, for a $1.5 billion funding in PGA Tour Enterprises with the potential for that to double.
PGA Tour Enterprises is separate from the tax-exempt PGA Tour that offers with competitors.
The newest negotiations are for PIF to change into a minority investor within the business arm. Nonetheless unclear is how that might patch up the fractured golf panorama.
PIF and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, are the monetary muscle behind LIV Golf. The breakaway spent some $2 billion to recruit prime gamers, who then have been suspended by the PGA Tour. That group included Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm. They’ve mixed to win 17 majors, and three have been No. 1 on the planet.
They solely time all of the world’s greatest compete collectively now are the 4 majors.
Rory McIlroy, who serves on a transaction subcommittee for tour negotiations, stated final week at Pebble Seashore he felt a brand new administration was “going to be a bit extra deal pleasant.”
“I believe from an funding standpoint, that deal ought to and will probably be carried out,” McIlroy stated. “But it surely doesn’t clear up the issue of what the panorama of golf seems to be like going ahead. I’d say the most important obstacle is possibly the differing visions of what golf ought to seem like sooner or later.”
Trump’s involvement in golf goes again greater than twenty years when he started constructing a portfolio of high-end golf programs, and shopping for the famend Turnberry Golf Membership in Scotland.
He additionally purchased Doral Resort outdoors Miami, a venerable PGA Tour cease that had hosted a World Golf Championship till shifting it in 2016 to Mexico Metropolis when it turned tough to discover a title sponsor with Trump and his ubiquitous presence.
Three of Trump’s programs have hosted LIV occasions, together with one this 12 months at Doral.
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