[PHOTO: Kevin C. Cox]
Speaking at this week’s Tour Championship in Atlanta, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan insisted that negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia for a potential business partnership continue to move forward. However, he had no specific advancements to report, same as two weeks earlier when talking to the press at the FedEx St Jude Classic. Monahan repeated that the tour wouldn’t negotiate details in public and said there is no set deadline for a deal to be finalised, but noted that bringing “the best players in the world back together” was a “good and aspirational goal”.
Given that the tour and the PIF had set a December 31, 2023, deadline to try to finalise a deal, the slow pace of the discussions has not only fans wondering what’s taking so long, but some players, too.
“Anyone that cares about golf, I think has to be frustrated,” said Rory McIlroy after shooting a two-under 69 during his opening round at East Lake Golf Club. “I think anyone that cares about the PGA Tour has to be frustrated because we’re – we, the royal we, we’re not putting forward the absolute best product that we can.”
McIlroy is one of three players who are members of the PGA Tour Enterprises’ Transactions Subcommittee. Two weeks ago he noted that the players on the committee hadn’t been part of a call since June.
“I just think that it’s gone on long enough,” McIlroy said. “We’ve got to try to… I mean, I think everyone is trying to find a solution. It’s just a solution is hard to get to.”
And what if no progress is made any time soon? Well, that might have been the most revealing thing McIlroy said.
“I think if it doesn’t happen soon, then honestly, I think PIF and the Saudis are going to have to look at alternative options, right? I think that’s probably the – I’d say that’s the next step in all this if something doesn’t get done.”
McIlroy didn’t expand on what those options might be, but it’s not hard to look across the Atlantic and wonder whether chief executive Guy Kinnings and other executives at the DP World Tour might be that alternative.
Before the PIF put its money behind the launch of the LIV Golf League in 2022, then DP World Tour chief executive Keith Pelley mulled a financial deal with the PIF. He ultimately turned it down and eventually signed a strategic alliance with the PGA Tour in November 2020. A sizeable portion of the DP World Tour membership later question if that was the right decision for the tour’s long-term health.
Pelley stepped down from the DP World Tour in April, and Kinnings has not spoken about whether he has any interest in working separately with the PIF. Remember under the framework agreement that the PGA Tour and PIF signed in June 2023, the DP World Tour is a third partner to the discussion.
McIlroy doubled down on his frustration, even bringing up a bittersweet (for him) memory from his loss at the US Open to Bryson DeChambeau to illustrate the point.
“I go back to… even though I was on the wrong side of things, like the US Open with Bryson and I, you’re only really going to get that four times a year at most. I think the game of golf deserves having those sort of things happen more than just four times a year.”
