PGA Tour and LIV Golf Discussed Making Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy LIV Golf Team Captains
Among ideas proposed by the LIV Golf League in the time leading up to the shocking framework agreement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia was giving Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy LIV Golf League franchises and seeing them compete in LIV Golf events.
Two of the biggest names in the game were staunchly opposed to the rival Saudi Arabia-funded circuit but were kept in the dark when negotiations took place between PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, policy board members Ed Hirlihy and Jimmy Dunne and the PIF’s Yasir Al-Rumayyan.
This was just one of the ideas that was discussed by the parties as part of documents released Tuesday by a Senate subcommittee during a hearing in Washington, D.C., led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut). The PGA Tour rejected it as part of the negotiation.
The committee is concerned about the foreign involvement in an American sports league as well as possible anti-trust violations.
Some of the ideas included having a “World Golf Series’’ team event that would be played in Saudi Arabia; LIV operating as it is but being played in the fall or with the idea of LIV co-existing along with the PGA Tour; two of the PGA Tour’s designated events to be branded by the PIF or the Saudi Arabia oil company, Aramco; and a membership at Augusta National for Al-Rumayyan, who is the governor of the PIF and also an avid golfer who has called LIV Golf ‘’my baby.’’
Also discussed was removing Greg Norman as commissioner of LIV Golf as well as Performance 54, the UK-based agency that has a big role behind the scenes in running LIV Golf.
The Washington Post reported that two people familiar with the negotiations rejected the proposal to remove Norman.
None of those details were cited in the framework agreement, signed May 30.
The agreement announced on June 6 was lacking considerable detail but basically outlined a plan that would see the PGA Tour as we know it – including this week’s Genesis Scottish Open and the Barbabsol Championship – remain as is as part of a non-profit 601c-6 structure known as PGA Tour Inc.
A new entity called PGA Tour Enterprises is to be formed that would be a for-profit LLC and include PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf assets. The PIF would be a minority investor in the new enterprise by the Tour, according to the agreement, would hold the most board seats, with Al-Rumayyan being chairman and Monahan CEO.
Tuesday’s document release gives more an idea of what the sides were discussing and hoping to achieve.
Blumenthal, chair of the subcommittee, shared a 10-page document along with 265 pages of emails that were submitted in advance of the hearings.
None of the communication appears to reveal how much of an investment there would be from the PIF or give guidance on how LIV golfers might return to the PGA Tour. One proposal said that Al-Rumayyan noted the players who turned down LIV Golf offers and recognized “the merits of compensating those PGA players who have remained loyal to the Tour and he would undertake to establish a substantial equalization fund for their benefit.’’
Monahan has not been working since a June 13 disclosure that he had a undisclosed medical issue. He announced last week that he will return to work on July 17.
At the hearing, the PGA Tour was represented by Price, the chief operating officer, and Dunne.
“The Tour will control operations, the Tour will control the board of the new subsidiary, and the Tour will be the governing body for competitive golf in connection with any combined golf operations,” Price said in written opening remarks. “The agreement provides clear, explicit, and permanent safeguards that ensure the Tour will lead the decisions that shape our future, and that we will have control over our operations, strategy, and continuity of our mission.
Dunne told the senators that he was no longer involved in negotiations but emphasized in his opening statement that “the Tour will have full decision-making authority. ... These safeguards were very important to us. We could not, and would not, have reached even this initial framework agreement without all of these strong safeguards against inappropriate control over the game of golf by the PIF.’’
All of these details still need to be worked out between both sides. And then it needs to be approved by the PGA Tour Policy Board, which lost one of its members over the weekend. Randall Stephenson, who had been on the board for 12 years, resigned due his disapproval over the agreement with the PIF.
His spot on the board 10-member board – five independent directors, five players – does not have to be filled prior to a vote on the agreement, a PGA Tour spokesman said. Al-Rumayyan, as part of the deal, would get a policy board seat.