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It’s been close to two years since the golf world was treated to a bombshell report that asserted the PGA Tour had agreed to a merger with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund that would seemingly bring the LIV Golf drama to an end. However, that announcement turned out to be incredibly premature, and the ongoing saga has taken another twist after a $1.5 billion offer was reportedly rejected.
LIV Golf had a very ambitious vision that hinged on its ability to take advantage of the laughable amount of money in Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to poach players from the PGA Tour in hopes of establishing a legitimate competitor to the circuit that’s been the premier destination for the best golfers on the planet since its inception.
However, it has not even come close to achieving its goals since kicking off its inaugural season in 2022. The PGA Tour may have lost a number of notable names, but it’s managed to emerge largely unscathed when it came to interest and viewership as LIV struggles to sniff the relevance it’s spent billions of dollars attempting to secure.
The PGA Tour has seen its product suffer a bit thanks to the loss of notable talents like Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, and Brooks Koepka, and it would undoubtedly benefit from being able to welcome them back into the fold.
That development that seemed fairly imminent when it revealed it had come to an agreement with the PIF in the summer 2023 that would result in the formation of a “new, collectively owned, for-profit entity” that would presumably bring LIV Golf defectors back into the fold.
However, the parties involved jumped the gun on that announcement when you consider nothing has come out of the string of meetings that have been held over the past couple of years. The PGA Tour has seen its television ratings trend in the right direction as LIV continues to flounder to a fairly embarrassing degree, and it subsequently holds a few more cards than it did when the negotiations initially got underway.
According to ESPN, that reality has been reflected by a recent development that saw the PGA Tour reportedly reject a $1.5 billion investment offer from the Saudis due to the conditions of a deal that would have required LIV Golf to continue to exist as its own entity and led to PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan being appointed to serve as the co-chairman of the tour’s Enterprises board.
Sources told the outlet the PGA Tour is willing to let LIV continue to exist in some capacity (such as “team competitions at international venues” later in the season) but is understandably unwilling to settle for the current status quo when it seemingly has the leverage to push for a full reunification.
The saga continues.