- LIV and the PGA Tour announced that they will merge again on June 6
- As we come to the end of the year, no further details have been revealed about the future of golf
- DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news
Today could have been a doomsday for the golf world. Six months and 206 days after the bombshell merger deal between the PGA Tour and Saudi-backed LIV was announced on June 6 and here we are – no deal, civil war raging and no end in sight.
Negotiations between the tours have now been overturned at the Masters in April, but since news of the merger broke, little has changed, the in-fighting continues but LIV’s influence swells as the PGA Tour, to put it mildly , decreases.
Jon Rahm took the money and ran – prompting LIV’s biggest critic Rory McIlroy to call for the rules to be rewritten to allow him to play in future Ryder Cups – while even Viktor Hovland slammed PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan earlier in December. , saying his organization treats players “as employees, not members.”
LIV, meanwhile, is bolstered by Rahm’s recruitment. Greg Norman, the LIV commissioner, says his phone hasn’t stopped ringing with players trying to join him on the Rebels tour.
So, where does golf go from here? Where could he go? Mail Sport weighs them all.
LIV AND PGA reach an agreement
If you can’t enter the new year with fresh hope and optimism, when can you?
An agreement may seem a long way off between the two organizations, but one thing that unites players on both tours is the claim that bitter enemies must find a way to live together.
In August 2022, new LIV recruit Bryson DeChambeau boasted about the two sides coming together, telling Tucker Carlson, “I personally know it will be cleared up, whether it’s legal or if they come to the table and work out the terms. I definitely think it will wash out in the future, very soon.”
And speaking in November, McIlroy said: “I feel we have a broken competitive landscape at the moment. And I’d rather they were all back in the same boat. I think that’s the best thing about golf.’
The framework discussed in June would see the PGA Tour and LIV combine with the DP World Tour, but details beyond that, as to what the schedule would look like, were thin.
DailyMail.Com exclusively reported in August that a 2025 calendar, with LIV’s $2 billion cash pool, would see 18 events outside of the big four held for top players. 12 will be in the US, three in Europe and three for LIV events.
Players would also be free to appear on all three tours – LIV, PGA and DP.
LIV’s team format was popular with players and featured as one of life’s only reservations on the breakaway tour. But how it might fit into the PGA setup is anyone’s guess.
On that dramatic day in June, Monahan sat next to PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan on television and outlined bold plans for golf’s brave new era.
“It’s going to be very big in many ways,” he said. “We’re going to have LIV and the PGA Tour and investing in the game of golf, doing a lot of new things that I think will get better engagement from players, fans, broadcasters and more access.”
So does it include a team aspect to a new PGA Tour look? Does this include the three round weapon launches that LIV has?
It’s all detail that, as far as we know, has yet to be worked out.
DISCUSSIONS CONTINUE
Perhaps the worst outcome for the PGA Tour is life in limbo beyond The Masters.
When the merger deal was announced in June, Al-Rumayyan said a formal deal could be reached “in a few weeks”, but that clearly did not happen.
And in the meantime, LIV is underway and Rahm’s recruitment is widely considered a game-changer. The Spaniard and reigning Masters champion had long teased the idea of joining LIV.
“I laugh when people with rumors with LIV Golf. I never liked the format,” Rahm said as recently as August, four months before his roughly $500 million deal was signed.
And while players like McIlroy have savaged those who have previously crossed the divide, Rahm has been treated with grace by the Northern Irishman.
“I’m going to miss racing against him every week,” he said. “I have nothing but good things to say about John. I respect him as a golfer. He seems to want to live his life the right way.
“Is it frustrating for me? Yes. But the golf landscape changed on June 6, when the framework agreement was announced. I think because of that it made the jump from the PGA Tour to LIV a little easier for the guys. They let the first guys take the heat. This framework agreement basically legitimized what LIV was trying to do.”
It’s far from the biggest leap of faith to think that others will follow Ram – not least because of Norman’s comments about how much his phone rings.
Players may see the window narrow to join LIV for a huge fee signing while the showdown is still there. If and when the merger happens, more lucrative prize funds will no doubt be offered, but signing fees may not be.
The PGA Tour’s appeal was further reduced when the launch of Tiger Woods and McIlroy’s ‘The Golf League’ was derailed by the collapse of the roof of their custom-built course in Florida. It is now scheduled for release in 2025.
NO AGREEMENT
In some ways, despite their aggressiveness to bring the best to the world, perhaps the worst outcome for LIV is no deal.
The merger with the PGA Tour will give LIV a legitimacy and authenticity it doesn’t yet have. For the stars on the tour — Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Cameron Smith and now Rahm — their events don’t yet have the same coverage or interest as PGA Tour events.
And for now, players don’t get ranking points for playing on the LIV tour, so players will continue to be locked out of contention for the Majors,
Al-Rummayan said in June that he would be president of the new organization created after a PGA/LIV merger, perhaps an indication of his own ambitions for a place at the top of the sport.
For the PGA Tour, reform would still be needed to appease the likes of Hovland and prevent more stars from turning their heads away from LIV.
But this could be possible. In November, Tom Werner of Fenway Sports Group – the company that owns the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC – confirmed that talks had taken place with the PGA about a different merger.
“The players will decide where the tour goes,” Werner said in an interview with CNBC in November, sitting next to Rory McIlroy.
It comes a week after Alan Shipnuck, the author of the book LIV and let die, claimed that FSG was an emerging presence in the future of the PGA Tour.
He wrote in X: “A huge problem from day one was the ‘merger’ message. The press release should have said “Lawsuits dropped, we’ll find out the rest later.
“There is nothing binding in the framework agreement. it is ambitious. The Tour is committed to a new biz model but not to PIF $.’
He continued: “From talking to people on Wall St. and in Silicon Valley close to the deal, the framework agreement is falling apart.
“Fenway Sports Group has made a huge bid to usurp PIF. It’s looking more and more likely to go back to LIV against the Tour.’