PGA Tour announces merger with Saudi-backed LIV Golf, ending all litigation

The most disruptive year in golf ended Tuesday when the PGA Tour and European tour agreed to a merger with Saudi Arabia’s golf interests, creating a commercial operation designed to unify professional golf around the world.

As part of the deal, the sides are dropping all lawsuits involving LIV Golf against each other effective immediately.

Still to be determined is how players like Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, who defected to Saudi-funded LIV Golf for nine-figure bonuses, can rejoin the PGA Tour after this year.

Also unclear was what form the LIV Golf League would take in 2024. Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a memo to players that a thorough evaluation would determine how to integrate team golf into the game.

The agreement combines the Public Investment Fund’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights — including LIV Golf — with those of the PGA and European tours. The new entity has not been named.

“They were going down their path, we were going down ours, and after a lot of introspection you realize all this tension in the game is not a good thing,” Monahan said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

“We have a responsibility to our tour and to the game, and we felt like the time was right to have that conversation.”

Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, will join the board of the PGA Tour, which continues to operate its tournaments. Al-Rumayyan will be chairman of the new commercial group, with Monahan as the CEO and the PGA Tour having a majority stake in the new venture.

Fans WBZ-TV spoke with at Granite Links Golf Club in Quincy, Massachusetts were stunned.

“I was disappointed. I think this will be a great business deal for the organizations involved, but sadly awful for golf’s reputation,” said golfer Jim Kenney. “The people behind LIV are using golf to whitewash their reputations internationally.”

“I think from the PGA standpoint they kind of sold out on themselves,” said golfer John Canuto. 

The PGA Tour and LIV Golf have been stuck in a legal battle. LIV hit the PGA Tour with an anti-trust lawsuit, claiming it was operating as a monopoly.

Michael McCann, a professor at the Sports Entertainment Law Institute at UNH Franklin Pierce, was also surprised by the merger.

“This was out of left field, and the fact that they settled is super surprising because a case like this was likely headed to a settlement,” McCann said. “It looks like the PGA Tour is going to have most of the authority in this union, but it’s still pretty striking, surprising, astonishing. I do think the optics are different because of the ties to Saudi Arabia.”

The PIF will invest in the commercial venture.

“That will be an open-ended critique that this is a way for the Saudi government to normalize itself in the eyes of the world,” McCann continued. “I think it creates a precedent for Saudi Backed PIF to back other leagues, whether that is soccer or maybe tennis.”

Monahan said the decision came together over the last seven weeks.