Tuesday, June 6, will go down as one of the most historic and borderline shocking days in the history of professional golf.
Seemingly out of the blue, the PGA Tour and LIV Golf series agreed to a merger, the Tour announced Tuesday morning. CNBC reported the agreement shortly before the official announcement.
“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “This transformational partnership recognizes the immeasurable strength of the PGA Tour’s history, legacy and pro-competitive model and combines it with the DP World Tour and LIV — including the team golf concept — to create an organization that will benefit golf’s players, commercial and charitable partners and fans.
“Going forward, fans can be confident we will, collectively, deliver on the promise we’ve always made — to promote competition of the best in professional golf and that we are committed to securing and driving the game’s future.”
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According to the Tour release, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fundy (PIF) — the group that financially backed LIV — will combine all of PIF’s “golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf)” with the Tour and DP World Tour. That will form a new “collectively owned, for-profit” entity that apparently will oversee the professional golf world. It sounds as if PGA Tour, LIV Golf and the DP World Tour will all continue to exist on their own, with the Tour revealing the “new entity will work to ensure a cohesive schedule of events,” with the PIF serving as the exclusive investor.
The name of the new “entity” is TBD, per the Tour.
One of the most important aspects of this agreement is that it will effectively end all ongoing litigation between the parties involved. LIV players who had been effectively banned from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour will be able to reapply for status following the 2023 season.
The new board of directors will include PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan serving as chairman with Monahan serving as CEO.
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