How much the Monday meeting between PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, the tour’s six player directors and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, did to impact the pace of negotiations between the two sides remains to be seen, but it was a long overdue first step.
It seems strange that it took more than nine months from the bombshell announcement of a framework agreement between the tour and the PIF, but it finally happened in the Bahamas this week.
There have been discussions between the two sides over the past several months but nothing as direct as bringing the principals together in the same place to shake hands and share ideas.
The magnitude of the meeting was enough to have social-media sleuths tracking private-jet flights and even monitoring Tiger Woods’ aquatic whereabouts in anticipation of the first face-to-face meeting between the players and the man who controls the PIF and its hundreds of billions of dollars.
Monahan sent a memo to players Monday night updating them on the process – transparency remains a flash point after the June 6 surprise – but he offered little in the way of specifics. The three player directors entered in the Valspar Championship this week – Jordan Spieth, Webb Simpson and Peter Malnati – also likely will be short on details when asked this week. Woods, Adam Scott and Patrick Cantlay, the other player directors, also attended the meeting.
In his memo, Monahan wrote:
“The conversation throughout was constructive and represents an important part of our due diligence process in selecting potential investors for PGA Tour Enterprises. This mirrors the approach we employed earlier this year as we evaluated an investment offer from the Strategic Sports Group. During the session, Yasir had a chance to introduce himself to our player directors and talk through his vision, priorities and motivations for investing in professional golf.”
There have been unconfirmed reports that Al-Rumayyan and Woods played golf together at Albany, where Woods annually hosts the Hero World Challenge.
Woods has, according to other player directors, taken an active role in the process, and getting his approval on whatever agreement is reached will be critical. He has expressed his strong support for the PGA Tour, and he is said to be against allowing players who left for LIV Golf to have an open path back to the tour, a stance reportedly shared by one or two other player directors.
In recent months, Monahan and the player directors along with other members of the PGA Tour Policy Board met with representatives of various private-equity groups interested in working with the tour to understand their visions and goals.
Eventually, the tour reached an agreement with Strategic Sports Group, and at least one of those investors – John Henry of Fenway Sports – was thought to be in the Monday meeting (his private plane was tracked to the Bahamas).
With the SSG piece in place, the Policy Board plans to follow a similar path in determining the viability of an agreement with the PIF. Among the major topics will be the future of LIV Golf, how team golf might fit into a future model, the pathway for former PGA Tour players to return and maintaining the tour’s position as professional golf’s dominant circuit.
“They want to invest in smart and secure businesses, and the PGA Tour is definitely one of those, especially if they’re looking to invest in sport in some way.” – Rory McIlroy
Rory McIlroy, a Policy Board member until late last year, has met with Al-Rumayyan and said Sunday that it’s critical for the player directors to understand him and what he wants. Al-Rumayyan wants to “fundamentally do the right thing,” McIlroy said.
“I actually think there’s a really big disconnect between PIF and LIV. I think you got PIF over here, and LIV are sort of over here doing their own thing. So, the closer that we can get to Yasir, PIF and hopefully finalize that investment, I think that will be a really good thing,” McIlroy said.
“Look, they’re a sovereign wealth fund. They want to park money for decades and not worry about it. They want to invest in smart and secure businesses, and the PGA Tour is definitely one of those, especially if they’re looking to invest in sport in some way.”
McIlroy said team golf remains important to Al-Rumayyan and LIV Golf and suggested there may be a way to incorporate that outside of a more traditional PGA Tour schedule.
He also said he expects any potential reunification to be a long process.
“It’s going to require patience. People have contracts at LIV up until 2028, 2029. I don’t know if they’re going to see that all the way out, but I definitely see LIV playing in its current form for the next couple years anyway while everything gets figured out,” McIlroy said.
“I don’t think this is an overnight solution, but if we can get the investment in, then at least we can start working towards a compromise where we’re not going to make everyone happy, but at least make everyone understand why we’re doing what we’re doing.”
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