Report claims PGA Tour-LIV Golf deal set to introduce 18-event global world tour from 2025
- Michael Schmitt
- 1 September 2023
A bombshell report from the Daily Mail claims the PGA Tour's deal with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) and the LIV Golf Tour is set to result in a brand new elite global golf tour.
According to the report, the British outlet claims it has learned of plans for a "united global schedule involving tournaments on the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi-backed LIV Series".
The tour will stage 18 tournaments, with 12 of those events taking place in the United States. Players from the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and LIV Golf will all be eligible to compete, and prize money for these marquee events would increase by roughly $25 million.
A proposal being given "serious consideration" is for an umbrella organisation — run by the PGA — to control all three tours.
Golfers from each tour would also be allowed to crossover and play in other tours, bringing to an end the bitter battles over which players stay loyal to the traditional tours and which choose to go elsewhere.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan hinted in a press conference ahead of the Tour Championship that the PGA Tour is set to maintain control over all golf operations.
"The PGA Tour is in the driver's seat," Monahan said last month.
"Our commitment is to move from the divisive nature of the relationship we had to a productive one, for us to be able to make a fundamental transition to our business with the formation of NewCo, to have an investable entity for PIF to believe in and able to invest in that previously didn't exist, for the PGA Tour to be in control of the future of men's professional golf and for us to be partners."
However, according to report from Bunkered, an unnamed PGA Tour source said the claims in the Daily Mail report were "well wide of the mark."
Negotiations between PGA Tour bosses and the PIF are continuing, with a deadline of December 31 set for the deal to be finalised.
"There are frequent talks. Tyler (Dennis) and Ron Price, who did a tremendous job in my absence, are leading conversations with the team from PIF, and I would just say, given the fact that there's frequency of talks, including Keith Pelley from DP World Tour, we're probably right where I would expect that we would be. But there's – yeah, so that's – there's an intensity, and there's an urgency, and there's a lot of work, good work, that's being done," Monahan said.
