If you were listening to Rory McIlroy and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan on Wednesday, you might get the idea that the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund are making progress in their negotiations. If you want to make a generous reading of Monahan’s comments, you could even say something is on the horizon.
But you might have missed something as McIlroy spoke candidly about the evolution of his thinking toward LIV Golf and Monahan praised President Donald Trump for hopefully playing a role in getting the deal to the finish line. You might have missed a few lines that could end up being a sticking point as the negotiations start clearing their final hurdle and a vision for men’s professional golf is crafted.
The goal, from McIlroy and Monahan’s standpoint, is the “reunification” of the game. Ever since the framework agreement was first announced, the question about whether and how LIV Golf would exist once the game came back together.
If you ask those playing on LIV, the breakaway tour will still have a home in golf’s ecosystem.
Phil Mickelson believes the league is just getting started. Bryson DeChambeau has plans for the Crushers franchise.
This week at LIV Adelaide, new LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil said he hopes that a finalized PGA-PIF deal will help accelerate things for LIV.
“For us at LIV, we are hoping that that unlocks opportunity,” O’Neil said of the PGA-PIF merger this week at LIV Adelaide. “That may unlock opportunity with markets, with courses, with marketing partners, with television networks, with growing the game, with competition opportunities, with new formats.
“I’m excited about the agreement,” O’Neil said later “I think that right now we are going to the moon and back, and I hope that’ll help as an accelerant, but I’m very confident in where we are in this business and the interest we have currently.”
Five-time major winner Brooks Koepka believes recent decisions by the USGA and R&A to give LIV players a pathway to earn an exemption into the U.S. Open and Open Championship makes a clear statement about LIV’s spot in the sport.
“This is the first step of many I think we’re looking to take,” Koepka said on Tuesday ahead of LIV Adelaide. “The opportunity is there. I think the organizations around the world — the R&A, the USGA — they’re looking at LIV Golf as part of the golf ecosystem now. That is a huge, huge step forward for us.”
All of that would lead you to believe that LIV Golf and its members believe they will be sticking around when the merger is finalized.
McIlory and Monahan hinted at something different on Wednesday as they went over their visions for what a unified sport will look like.
When asked about his meeting with Trump, Monahan outlined the PGA Tour’s vision for the endgame.
Which is the game of golf operating under one tour with all the top players playing on that one tour.
All the top players playing under one tour.
Asked what that looks like for the PGA Tour and LIV, Monahan didn’t back away from the stated goal.
“What it means is the reunification of the game, which is what we have been and are focused on,” Monahan said. “Candidly, that’s what fans want. So when you talk about reunification, that’s all the best players in the world competing with each other and against each other.
“If you think about what the fans want,” Monahan later said. “The fans want reunification. That’s what we’re focused on.”
For his part, McIlroy said on Wednesday that the PGA Tour should allow LIV players who still have status to come back and play and eventually allow them to earn equity in PGA Tour Enterprises. The four-time major champion noted that it would be good for everyone on the Tour if players like DeChambeau returned.
Asked about the idea of reunification and if he has heard from players on LIV that they want to come back, McIlroy acknowledged what might become a sticking point in the negotiations.
“I would say, look, you’ve heard it yourself. Like Jon Rahm would love to play here this week or he would love to play the Phoenix Open,” McIlroy said. “There’s certain events that they definitely miss. I think the hard thing for me, you know, is they want to do that but then they also want to play a few events here. Well, OK, I don’t know if that’s going to be quite an option. It might be, who knows.”
McIlroy said he could see the PGA Tour trying to use LIV in certain markets where it is popular, like Australia, but he is ultimately unsure where or how the team format will fit into the schedule in the reunified game.
“We’ll see,” McIlroy said about LIV’s role in the unified game. “Do they take up a smaller part of the schedule maybe or, you know, do we try to — there are certain markets that their product has worked in. Adelaide, for example, this week. So, are there certain markets where we try to cherry-pick the best ones that make sense and try to do something with them?
“I don’t know. Like that’s very — that’s above my pay grade these days.”
While McIlroy has removed himself from his former role as the tip of the spear in the PGA Tour’s battle with LIV, he did make one thing clear about the breakaway league’s spot once the dust settles.
Don’t expect him to partake.
“I hope not,” McIlroy said with a smile when asked about potential crossover with the PGA Tour and LIV.
The PGA Tour and its power brokers have a crystalizing vision for what professional golf’s future will look like. Those on LIV are clear that they don’t plan to fade away and be absorbed back into the Tour.
How those visions blend, or whose wins out, will serve as the outline for what the new golf ecosystem looks like.
But, like everything in golf, that’s going to take time.
