Adam Scott concedes there could be some unhappiness if LIV golfers are welcomed back into the PGA Tour fold.
The Associated Press spoke to the 2013 Masters champion at the recent Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines, where Scott said – as reunification talks ramped up recently – he believed getting rival tours back together was “one option” forward for professional golf.
PGA Tour Enterprises and the DP World Tour are negotiating an agreement to have Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which finances LIV Golf, as a potential investor.
Scott, apart from playing on the PGA Tour for almost 23 years where he’s won 14 times, ascended to his position as Player Advisory Council chairman in 2023. Eventually, he became a player director.
He and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan recently met with President Donald Trump to discuss professional golf’s divide. Monahan told media at Torrey Pines that his meeting with Trump was a “productive visit” while asserting the goal is “the game of golf operating under one tour with all the top players playing on that one tour”. Monahan, Woods and Scott combined to release a joint statement about the meeting with President Trump:
On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that Scott said reunification would make it hard to “please everyone”.
“I wouldn’t be surprised — or I wouldn’t judge anyone, the members — if reunification happened and they weren’t happy with how it happened,” Scott said. “I hope they’re not spending as much time talking about it as I have. I wouldn’t hold it against anybody if there were negative emotions attached to it, the thought of players coming back.
“The one thing I do know is we’re not going to please everyone, but everyone should know that I will stand behind these player directors. They’re trying to do the best thing for the entire membership. They’ve been faced with some tough decisions the last two years — tough calls, big consequences — for whatever we vote on.”
Scott, 44, was asked if reunification was the only way forward. He said, “It’s one way forward.”
“But it’s not solely the tour’s decision, you know what I mean?” he said. “There’s two people in this discussion, more to be honest — the DP World Tour, a lot of other stakeholders in the pro game. The tour and its representatives talk a lot about it. But we’re not in control of the entire situation. There’s another side to the story. It’s not been an easy thing to solve, otherwise we’d have solved it, I believe.”
Scott’s comments came after Woods made a guest appearance on Sunday (Monday AEDT) on the CBS TV broadcast. The 82-time PGA Tour winner, who did not play the Genesis while dealing with the loss of his mother, Kultida, said he thinks that “things [in pro golf] are going to heal quickly.”
“We’re going to get this game going in the right direction,” Woods said. “It’s been heading in the wrong direction for a number of years and the fans want all of us to play together, all the top players playing together and we’re going to make that happen.”
