PHOENIX — PGA Tour officials met with President Donald Trump on Tuesday, the tour said, in its first public acknowledgement of his role in potentially clearing the way for the tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund to strike a completed deal to ultimately reunify the men’s professional game.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and Adam Scott, one of the PGA Tour’s player directors, met with Trump, according to a news release.
“We know golf fans are eagerly anticipating a resolution to negotiations with the Public Investment Fund and want to thank President Trump for his interest and long-time support of the game of golf,” the tour said in the release. “We asked the president to get involved for the good of the game, the good of the country, and for all the countries involved. We are grateful that his leadership has brought us closer to a final deal, paving the way for reunification of men’s professional golf.”
The release was signed by Monahan and Scott, in addition to 15-time major champion Tiger Woods, who also serves as a player director and has maintained a close relationship with the president throughout his career. Woods was not a part of the meeting — he tragically lost his mother on Tuesday. Justin Thomas, a member of the PGA Tour Player Advisory Council, said they were informed of the meeting the same day.
“He obviously loves golf, loves to play, wants the best for the game and I think he’s going to try to do everything he can to help negate some of the issues that we’ve had with the Department of Justice, so I think he’ll do a good job of giving us some more leeway from that end,” said Sam Burns, an outspoken supporter of Trump and another member of the tour’s PAC.
The golf community has been waiting for the finalized version of a PGA Tour-PIF agreement to materialize, particularly in the hopes that it brings the top players in the men’s game back onto the same stages. According to multiple public statements from player leadership on the PGA Tour, the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust review of the deal, because of its potentially monopolistic nature, has delayed the transaction significantly.
In October, multiple legal experts told The Athletic that the Trump administration could help usher the deal through the DOJ’s regulatory review process, due to his ties to the golf industry and the Saudi PIF. After Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, Rory McIlroy — a member of the subcommittee that negotiated directly with the Saudis — told reporters that the result “clears the way” for the competition of the deal.
In mid-November, the President-elect personally invited Monahan to play golf at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. The next day, Trump sat next to PIF chairman Yasir al-Rumayyan at the UFC heavyweight championship in New York.
The parties have been working to solidify a completed deal since June 6, 2023, when the PGA Tour, the PIF and the DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour) announced a framework agreement to “reunify the world of men’s professional golf.” The plan was to create a new, for-profit LLC with the Saudi sovereign wealth fund injecting significant funds and the tour maintaining power.
Even if a deal goes through, it is unclear how the agreement will unify the fractured sport. LIV Golf just signed a multiyear media rights agreement with FOX Sports, and all signs point to the start-up league continuing operations. The PGA Tour has worked on improvements of its own, including new pathways to the tour and smaller, big-money tournaments to focus attention on its top stars.
The men’s game has been divided since LIV came onto the scene as a disruptor league in 2022, luring the PGA Tour’s top talent with multimillion-dollar contracts and team-style golf. Jon Rahm — LIV’s latest headline-making player acquisition — was reportedly offered upwards of $550 million to join the league in 2023. Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson are some of the other household golf names that make up LIV’s top talent.
The PGA Tour began to suspend players who participated in LIV Golf tournaments despite those players holding status as independent contractors. In news conferences, Monahan invoked Saudi Arabia’s human rights offenses in his stance against LIV. “Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?” he said in the wake of the suspensions.
Soon after, a group of LIV golfers sued the PGA Tour for monopolistic behavior. The PGA Tour countered. That’s why the two leagues shocked the golf and sports world in 2023 by signing a five-page agreement to work toward reunification, even if the most lasting impact was the end of litigation.
Thursday’s release from the PGA Tour could be a sign political forces are playing a significant factor in the completion of a deal. If this latest step helps facilitate the transaction, upward of $1 billion of Saudi money would reportedly be injected into the PGA Tour.
(Photo of Monahan and Trump in 2017: Bill Streicher / Imagn Images)
