Getty Image / David Cannon
The Senate Subcommittee looking into the potential PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger released a massive trove of documents and correspondence between the various parties on Tuesday.
There are 276 pages in total that were released by the Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations. That is a massive amount of information to pour over but it didn’t take long for people to zero in on messages pertaining to Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, and LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman.
Within the documents, a proposal was revealed to have Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy each own their own LIV Golf teams as well as participate in 10 events.
This information can be found on Page 5 of the Senate’s documents:
On April 26, 2023, following the London meetings, PCP Capital Partners
provided a slide show presentation to Mr. Dunne and Mr. Herlihy (attached as Appendix 4) titled,
“The Best of Both Worlds” that contained proposals for a potential long-term agreement between
PIF and PGA Tour including:24* Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods to own LIV Golf teams and participate in at least 10 LIV Golf events;
* A LIV Golf style team global event with qualifying events held in Saudi Arabia and a final week in Dubai;
* A global golf investment fund managed by PIF; and
* A minimum of two PGA high-profile events to be sponsored by Aramco and/or PIF, with one of these events held in Saudi Arabia.
That is probably something Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy would have liked to have known about prior to a LIV Golf-PGA Tour merger being publicly announced, right? On Page 7, it is revealed PGA Tour Jay Monahan was set to meet with Tiger Woods and Rory prior to the June 6th announcement.
As for Greg Norman’s future with LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, it doesn’t seem there is a future. Also found on Page 7 is this excerpt:
In addition to the executed Framework Agreement, PGA Tour officials requested a side agreement specifying that LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman and Performance54 would not be retained by LIV Golf following the execution of the Framework Agreement, and that Mr. Norman and Performance54’s dismissal would occur by a specific date.
A page later, the documents reveal “Greg Norman will be reassigned to an advisory role determined by PIF
when the PGA TOUR becomes the manager of the LIV Tour.”
From the moment the LIV Golf-PGA Tour merger was announced it seems to have been unanimously assumed Greg Norman would be out of a job and this all but confirms it.
Other things revealed in the documents include:
Very interesting: some of the proposals floated between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund, as shown in documents released today by the Subcommittee:
– Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy being given ownership of LIV Golf teams and participating in LIV Golf events
– Greg…
— John Nucci (@JNucci23) July 11, 2023
There are a lot of text messages and emails revealed in the documents. Those can be read in full by following the link above.