Reinhold Matay-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Remember when a deal to unify golf was reportedly “imminent?” That’s what people were saying about the PGA Tour merging with LIV Golf less than a year ago. It has now been over three years since LIV Golf splintered professional golf, taking numerous top stars away from the PGA Tour after almost 90 years of being unopposed.
In Dec. 2024, it was reported that a PGA Tour-LIV Golf deal was imminent. Two months later, Tiger Woods said he believed golf reunification was closer than ever.
Now, however, a guy who knows a whole lot about mergers and acquisitions, former PGA Tour Policy Board member Jimmy Dunne, the vice chairman and senior managing principal of Piper Sandler, says a merger with LIV Golf may never happen. In fact, he said that maybe the two golf organizations “shouldn’t get a deal done.”
“You know, if you wanted to see a deal done probably the worst day was when the chairman Ed Herlihy and I resigned at different times because we could have gotten the deal done,” Dunne told CNBC.
“Maybe they shouldn’t get a deal done and right now the Tour is in pretty good shape. LIV seem to be doing what they want to do so I think it’s just gonna go on like this for a while and I think at this point it probably should.
“I think if there was a time to get a deal done it should have been before the British Open in ’23, which is what we set out to do,” Dunne continued. “[The merger announcement] wasn’t received well, it was shocking to me how it was received because all we did was really settle the lawsuits and begin discussion, but that’s what it was.
“I think now the tour is in very good shape, the boys on LIV seem like they’re fine. I just think that’ll go on for a while.
“I don’t know. As I said when I did resign and got a lot of criticism that there didn’t seem to be any progress made at that point in time and that got everybody very upset. Well, that was a year and a half ago, I don’t see any progress, but maybe there shouldn’t be at this time. Let’s see how it all works out.”