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PGA Tour strikes a $3 billion deal with a sports owners investment group

The Associated Press

Patrick Cantlay finishes the first round at Torrey Pines, at the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament in San Diego on Jan. 24. He is a member of the PGA Tour board, which unanimously approved a $3 billion deal with an investment group. Denis Poroy/AP hide caption

Patrick Cantlay finishes the first round at Torrey Pines, at the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament in San Diego on Jan. 24. He is a member of the PGA Tour board, which unanimously approved a $3 billion deal with an investment group.

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — The PGA Tour is getting a $3 billion investment from Strategic Sports Group in a deal that would give players access to more than $1.5 billion as equity owners in the new PGA Tour Enterprises.

The launching of PGA Tour Enterprises, with SSG as a minority partner, comes eight months after the PGA Tour signed a framework agreement with the Saudi backers of LIV Golf for a commercial venture, and ultimately led to private equity groups wanting to join.

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The Associated Press obtained a copy of the announcement expected to be released Wednesday morning. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan was holding a conference call with players about the deal that was finalized Tuesday night.

The Washington Post first reported the deal with SSG.

PGA Tour still negotiating with Saudi investment fund

The tour still is negotiating with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which was not part of the deal. The tour said its partnership with SSG allows for a co-investment from PIF, subject to regulatory approval.

"By making PGA Tour members owners of their league, we strengthen the collective investment of our players in the success of the PGA Tour," Monahan, who will be CEO of PGA Tour Enterprises, said in the formal announcement.

He said a partnership with SSG — a group comprised of American owners and executives of pro sports franchises — will "enhance our organization's ability to make the sport more rewarding for players, tournaments, fans and partners."

In a stunning move, PGA Tour agrees to merge with its Saudi-backed rival, LIV Golf

The unique equity program in golf would give some 200 players access to initial grants. Starting next year, PGA Tour Enterprises would make recurring grants for future players.

While specific details of the equity ownership program were not announced, the initial grants would be based on career accomplishments, recent achievements and PGA Tour status. The grants would vest over time.

Who the sports owners are

SSG is led by Fenway Sports Group and includes owners Marc Attanasio (Milwaukee Brewers); Arthur Blank (Atlanta Falcons); Steven Cohen (New York Mets); Wyc Grousbeck (Boston Celtics); Tom Werner and John Henry (Boston Red Sox); Marc Lasry (Milwaukee Bucks). Others in the group include Alec Scheiner, former Cleveland Browns president and co-founder of Otro Capital.

"Our enthusiasm for this new venture stems from a very deep respect for this remarkable game and a firm belief in the expansive growth potential of the PGA Tour," said Henry, the principal owner of Fenway Sports and manager of SSG.

SSG is investing an initial $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises and will concentrate on maximizing revenue for the benefit of the players and on finding opportunities to enhance golf across the world. Another $1.5 billion would go toward PGA Tour business.

The deal was unanimously approved by the PGA Tour board, which includes six players — Tiger Woods, Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Jordan Spieth, Webb Simpson and Peter Malnati.

"It was incredibly important for us to create opportunities for the players of today and in the future to be more invested in their organization, both financially and strategically," the player directors said in a joint statement. "This not only further strengthens the tour from a business perspective, but it also encourages the players to be fully invested in continuing to deliver — and further enhance — the best in golf to our fans.

"We are looking forward to this next chapter and an even brighter future."

'I still hate LIV': Golf's civil war is over, but how will pro golfers move on?

The tour said it was making progress in its negotiations with the Saudi national wealth fund on future investments and an ultimate agreement. Under the original framework agreement, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the PIF governor, was to be chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises. It was not clear how the partnership with SSG affects that.

The tour said SSG has agreed to any investment by PIF, subject to the necessary review and approval.

A congressional committee led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., on Monday sent a letter to Al-Rumayyan asking that he cooperate in allowing the committee to subpoena four U.S. consulting firms working for PIF.

The European tour was part of the framework agreement on June 6, and it has a strategic alliance with the PGA Tour. The tour said only it is discussing how they can work together for a mutual benefit.

Key to the original deal was dismissing the lawsuits involving LIV Golf. Since the rival league was launched in June 2022, LIV has lured several prominent players and major champions such as Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau.

As the tour's negotiations with PIF neared its original Dec. 31 deadline, LIV signed Masters champion Jon Rahm in a deal reported to be in the neighborhood of $500 million. It also signed Tyrrell Hatton, currently No. 16 in the world, for a third season that starts Friday in Mexico.

10 Things You Didn't Know About The PGA Tour

Here are 10 things you may not be familiar with about the US-based circuit

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The PGA Tour is the biggest and longest-standing circuits in the sport which plays host to some of the game's most prestigious tournament such as The Players and The Memorial Tournament. 

The Tour has grown massively in recent years, with total prize fund of around $460million in 2023 but its beginnings are far humbler. Here are some facts about the Tour that you may not be familiar with.

1. Prior to the modern PGA Tour, the Tournament Players Division - founded in 1929 - had existed to great success, with the sport growing tremendously in the late 1950s and 1960s due to the star power of legendary golfers such as Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.

2. The official formation of the PGA Tour occurred in late 1968, when the then "Tournament Players Division” split from the PGA of America and hired Joe Dey as its first commissioner. The independent Tour also created the first policy board, made up of four players, three PGA executives and three consulting businessmen.

3. The first event in the newly-formed PGA Tour came in 1969 at the Los Angeles Open. Charlie Sifford won the event, taking home the $20,000 winner's cheque. Two years prior, Sifford had become the first African American to win a professional men's golf tournament. 

Jay Monahan is the current PGA Tour commissioner

4. In total, the first season saw 49 official events, with the season running from January to December. The tournaments almost exclusively took place in the United States, except for the Open Championship at Royal Lytham and St Annes and the West End Classic, which was held in the Bahamas. 

5. The headquarters of the PGA Tour was initially in Washington, D.C. before the Tour relocated to Ponte Vedra Beach in Florida in 1979 where it remains to this day. 

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6. Jay Monahan is the current commissioner of the PGA Tour and only the fourth in the organisation's history. He took over the role from Tim Finchem in January 2017.

7. Alongside the PGA Tour helps to run competitions on three further Tours - the PGA Tour Champions for senior players as well as its two developmental Tours, the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Americas.

8. Tiger Woods and Sam Snead hold the record for the most wins on the PGA Tour with 82. Woods won his first tournament in 1996 at the Las Vegas Invitational and most recently in 2019 at the Zozo Championship. Snead, meanwhile, won his 82 tournaments between 1936 and 1965, prior to the establishment of the modern-day Tour.

Tiger Woods has the joint-most PGA Tour wins

9. While the majority of its events take place in America, the PGA Tour does hold occasional events outside of North America. In the most recent 2022/23 season, events were held in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Japan and Scotland, with the Scottish Open, a co-sanctioned event with the DP World Tour.

10. Members of the PGA Tour do not have to pay an entry fee to compete in any tournament but there are several dues and fees, including a $20 Insurance Fee and a Mandatory Locker Room Fee of $50 at every tournament.

Ben joined Golf Monthly having completed his NCTJ in multimedia sports journalism at News Associates, London. He is now a freelance journalist who also works for The Independent, Metro, UEFA and Stats Perform.

Scottie Scheffler has had an incredible year he has largely dominated throughout, but how many birdies has the World No.1 achieved?

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2024 Procore Championship Full Field: PGA Tour Fall Season Begins

John schwarb | 12 hours ago.

After a week off to watch Week 1 of the NFL like the rest of us, the PGA Tour resumes this week with its “FedEx Cup Fall” schedule.

Starting at the Procore Championship in Napa, Calif., there will be million-dollar first-place checks up for grabs and, just as importantly, playing opportunities for next year.

Players ranked No. 51 and down in the FedEx Cup points list continue to compete for points, with spots in the first two signature events of 2025 up for grabs. And while full Tour cards are secure for next year for players from 51-70 in points, players below that will be busy this fall to try to ensure full privileges for next year in non-signature events.

The field this week at the Silverado Resort North Course features plenty of those players but also several familiar names. The Presidents Cup teams for the United States and International sides were finalized last week, and four players from those teams are teeing it up this week to stay fresh for the matches at the end of the month: Wyndham Clark, Corey Conners, Max Homa and Sahith Theegala. International team captain Mike Weir is also playing.

Theegala is the defending champion, Homa won the two editions prior to that—all when the event was known as the Fortinet. Stewart Cink, Cameron Champ and Kevin Tway are all in the field and champions when it was the Safeway Open. Procore is the fourth title sponsor in a decade for the Napa event and the purse took a haircut this year to $6 million, down from last year’s $8.4 million.

Here’s the full field for the fall opener from the PGA Tour, follow this X post all week for any field adjustments:

The first of eight tournaments in the 2024 FedExCup Fall begins next week at the Procore Championship (September 12-15) in Napa, California. Field for the Procore Championship: pic.twitter.com/mTXRMn9KBa — PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) September 6, 2024

JOHN SCHWARB

John Schwarb is a senior editor for Sports Illustrated covering golf. Prior to joining SI in March 2022, he worked for ESPN.com, PGATour.com, Tampa Bay Times and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He is the author of The Little 500: The Story of the World's Greatest College Weekend. A member of the Golf Writers Association of America, Schwarb has a bachelor's in journalism from Indiana University.

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TOUR Championship

East Lake Golf Club

Atlanta, Georgia • USA

Aug 29 - Sep 1, 2024

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These 24 golf holes measured more than 600 yards during the 2024 pga tour season, share this article.

Of the 738 holes used in competition during the PGA Tour’s 2024 season, 24 of them stretched beyond 600 yards, with one of them just 23 yards shy of 700 (and no, it wasn’t one of those playing at high altitude).

Castle Pines, which hosted the BMW Championship, has three holes on this list. Not too surprising, considering that course plays at 6,400-foot elevation.

Grand Reserve Club (Puerto Rico Open), TPC San Antonio Oaks Course (Valero Texas Open), Vidanta Vallarta (Mexico Open at Vidanta), Puntacana Resort and Club Corales Course (Corales Puntacana Championship) each had two holes on this list.

The U.S. Open and the Open Championship each had one here. The Masters and the PGA, however, didn’t register among the men’s majors with holes more than 600 yards.

Here’s the list of 24 golf holes that played more than 600 yards in 2024 :

Just missing out on being the 25th hole to measure more than 600 yards is the fourth at Royal Troon for the 2024 Open Championship, which officially came in at 599 yards.

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Y.E. Yang wins first, denies Bernhard Langer his 47th title in playoff on PGA Tour Champions

ST. LOUIS — Y.E. Yang forced a playoff with a 6-foot par putt for a 5-under 66 and made a 10-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole against Bernhard Langer to win the Ascension Charity Classic on Sunday for his first PGA Tour Champions title.

The 67-year-old Langer, who has a record 46 senior titles, was trying to win for the 18th consecutive season on the 50-and-older circuit and nearly did. He hit a shot out of the rough to 15 feet on the 18th hole at Norwood Hills and made birdie for a 64.

Yang’s par putt sent them to a playoff at 13-under 200.

Back to the 18th, Langer pulled his tee shot into the bunker and followed with a hybrid to about 15 feet. But his birdie attempt stayed on the high side of the hole, setting up Yang to deliver his winning putt.

The 52-year-old Yang is best known for being the only player to overcome a 54-hole deficit against Tiger Woods in a major when he won the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine.

“PGA was a long time ago,” said Yang, in his third year on the PGA Tour Champions. “Today is very special.”

Missing from the playoff was Stewart Cink, going for his second straight win on the PGA Tour Champions after capturing the most recent tournament at The Ally Challenge. Cink hit the green in two on the par-5 15th and two-putted for birdie to take the lead.

Cink still led Yang and Langer by one shot going to the 17th. But he sent his drive well to the right and couldn’t hit the green. His chip up the slope stopped about 12 feet short, and Cink’s par putt rimmed around the cup.

Yang hit wedge into 4 feet for birdie, and the two-shot swing gave Yang the lead going to the 18th. Cink hit into a greenside bunker and couldn’t birdie, closing with a 67.

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2024 Procore Championship field: PGA Tour players, rankings

The 2024 Procore Championship field is set with the passing of the PGA Tour tournament entry deadline . This week's PGA Tour field is set for this FedEx Cup Fall event, played at Siverado Resort in Napa, Calf., from September 12-15, 2024.

The Procore Championship field is headlined by the likes of Max Homa and more.

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This is set to be a 156-player field is played out over four days, with this event marking the first tournament of the FedEx Cup Fall on the 2024 PGA Tour schedule .

The tournament is being played in its originally intended slot, with the PGA Tour starting the FedEx Cup Fall series to determine the top 125 players in the standings who keep their PGA Tour cards for 2025.

We do not yet have Monday qualifiers for this event, which will be played Thursday through Sunday.

The Procore Championship alternate list is based off of players who have the next-best status to get in the event. Marty Dou and Tommy Gainey are the first two alternates.

The field will be playing for a $6 million purse, with five of the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking among the top contenders.

2024 Procore Championship field

Top 50 players in 2024 procore championship field, about the author.

Ryan Ballengee

Ryan Ballengee is founder and editor of Golf News Net. He has been writing and broadcasting about golf for nearly 20 years. Ballengee lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his family. He is currently a +2.6 USGA handicap, and he has covered dozens of major championships and professional golf tournaments. He likes writing about golf and making it more accessible by answering the complex questions fans have about the pro game or who want to understand how to play golf better.

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PGA and LIV Merger Deal Increases Saudi Arabia’s Influence in Golf

The partnership is a major victory for Saudi ambitions in sports, but the announcement split players. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan described his meeting with golfers late in the afternoon as “heated.”

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Alan Blinder

The alliance between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf ends a bitter fight in the sport.

The PGA Tour, the dominant force in men’s professional golf for generations, and LIV Golf, which made its debut just last year and is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in Saudi money, will together form an industry powerhouse that is expected to transform the sport, executives announced Tuesday.

The rival circuits had spent the last year clashing in public, and the tentative agreement that emerged from secret negotiations blindsided virtually all of the world’s top players, agents and broadcasters. The deal would create a new company that would consolidate the PGA Tour’s prestige, television contracts and marketing muscle with Saudi money.

The new company came together so quickly that it does not yet even have a name and is referred to in the agreement documents simply as “NewCo.” It would be controlled by the PGA Tour but significantly financed by the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund . The fund’s governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan, will be the new company’s chairman.

The deal, coming when Saudi Arabia is increasingly looking to assert itself on the world stage as something besides one of the world’s largest oil producers, has implications beyond sports. The Saudi money will give the new organization greater clout, but it comes with the troubling association of the kingdom’s human rights record, its treatment of women and accusations that it was responsible for the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a leading critic.

The agreement does not immediately amount to a Saudi takeover of professional golf, but it positions the nation’s top officials to have enormous sway over the game. It also represents an escalation in Saudi ambitions in sports, moving beyond its corporate sponsorship of Formula 1 racing and ownership of an English soccer team into a place where it can exert influence over the highest reaches of a global game.

“Everybody is in shock,” said Paul Azinger, the winner of the 1993 P.G.A. Championship and the lead golf analyst for NBC Sports. “The future of golf is forever different.”

Since LIV began play last year, it has used some of the richest contracts and prize money in the sport’s history to entice players away from the PGA Tour. Until Tuesday morning, the PGA Tour had been publicly uncompromising: LIV was a threat to the game and a glamorous way for Saudi Arabia to rehabilitate its reputation. The PGA Tour’s commissioner, Jay Monahan, had even avoided uttering LIV’s name in public.

But a series of springtime meetings in London, Venice and San Francisco led to a framework agreement that stunned the golf industry for its timing and scope. Monahan, who defended the decision as a sound business choice and said he had accepted that he would be accused of hypocrisy, met with PGA Tour players in Toronto on Tuesday in what he called an “intense” and “certainly heated” exchange.

The deal, though, proved right the predictions that there could eventually be an uneasy patching-up of the sport’s fractures. The PGA Tour’s board, which includes a handful of players like Patrick Cantlay and Rory McIlroy, must still approve the agreement, a process that could be tumultuous.

It was only a year ago this week that LIV Golf held its inaugural tournament, prompting the PGA Tour to suspend players who competed in it. But by the end of the year, even though the circuit was locked in an antitrust battle with the PGA Tour and its stars were confronting uncertain futures at the sport’s marquee competitions, LIV had some of the biggest names in golf on its payroll. Its players have included the major tournament champions Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith.

The players were familiar, but LIV’s 54-hole events — the name derives from the Roman numerals for that number — were jarring, with blaring music and golfers in shorts not facing the specter of being unceremoniously cut midway through. The PGA Tour, meanwhile, defended its 72-hole events, where low performers do not compete into the weekend, as rigorous athletic tests that adhered to the traditions of an ancient game.

The less-starchy LIV concept drew plenty of headlines, and the league won even greater attention because of its links to former President Donald J. Trump, who hosted LIV tournaments and emerged as one of its most enthusiastic boosters. The league, however, was still largely dependent on the largess of a wealth fund that had been warned that a rebel golf circuit was no certain financial bonanza. It stumbled to a television deal with the CW Network, and big corporate sponsorships were scarce.

The league accrued some athletic successes, even as its players faced the risk of eventual exclusion from golf’s major tournaments, which are run by organizations that are close to, but distinct from, the PGA Tour.

Last month, Koepka won the P.G.A. Championship , which was organized by the P.G.A. of America. Koepka, Mickelson and Patrick Reed were among the LIV players who fared especially well at the Masters Tournament, administered by Augusta National Golf Club, in early April.

Within weeks of the Masters, though, after a run of mutual overtures and months of bravado, PGA Tour and Saudi executives were convening in secret to see if there was a way toward some kind of coexistence, in part, Monahan suggested, because he did not think it was “right or sustainable to have this tension in our sport.” The result was an agreement that gives the tour the upper hand but is poised to make permanent Saudi Arabia’s influence over golf’s starry ranks.

Monahan, the tour’s commissioner, is in line to be the chief executive of the new company, which will include an executive committee stocked with tour loyalists. But al-Rumayyan's presence, as well as the promise that the wealth fund can play a pivotal role in how the company is ultimately funded, means that Saudi Arabia could do much to shape the sport’s future.

In a memorandum to players on Tuesday, Monahan insisted that his tour’s “history, legacy and pro-competitive model not only remains intact, but is supercharged for the future.”

That was hardly a consensus view. Mackenzie Hughes, a PGA Tour player, acidly noted on Twitter that there was “nothing like finding out through Twitter that we’re merging with a tour that we said we’d never do that with.” And Terry Strada, the chairwoman of 9/11 Families United, who had assailed the Saudi foray into golf because of misgivings about the kingdom after the 2001 terrorist attacks, said Monahan and the tour had “become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation.”

The tour and the wealth fund both had incentives to forge an agreement, besides the prospect of concluding a chaotic chapter marked by allegations of betrayal and greed.

LIV had faced setbacks in civil litigation against the PGA Tour that threatened to drag al-Rumayyan into sworn testimony and force the wealth fund to turn over documents that could have become public. The tour has been under scrutiny from Justice Department antitrust investigators , who had examined in recent months whether the tour’s tactics to counter LIV had undermined golf’s labor market.

The litigation between the tour and LIV will end under the terms of the agreement announced Tuesday. The fate of the antitrust inquiry was less clear — experts said the new arrangement would not automatically immunize the tour from potential legal trouble — but LIV’s standing as its leading cheerleader evaporated.

For this year, the world’s professional golfers are unlikely to see seismic changes in their schedules or playing formats, with LIV and the PGA Tour expected to hold competitions as planned. There may be far more consequential changes later, though, chiefly because the new PGA Tour-controlled company will determine whether and how LIV’s team-oriented format might be blended with the tour’s more familiar offerings.

LIV players are expected to have pathways to apply for reinstatement to the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour, circuits from which some had resigned when faced with fines and suspensions, but they could face residual penalties for leaving in the first place. Through a spokeswoman, Greg Norman, the two-time major tournament champion who has been LIV’s commissioner, declined to be interviewed on Tuesday.

No matter what comes of the LIV brand or style, Tuesday’s announcement is a singular milestone in the Saudi quest to become a titan in global sports. With the deal, the kingdom can move, at least in golf, from a well-heeled disrupter to a seat of power at the establishment’s table.

Saudi officials have repeatedly denied that political or public relations motives undergird their eager pursuit of sports investments. Instead, they have framed the investments as necessary for shoring up the resource-rich kingdom’s finances and to enhance its standing on the world stage.

Beyond its imprint on golf , the wealth fund previously purchased Newcastle United, a potent English soccer team, and a company with close ties to the fund has eyed investments in cricket, tennis and e-sports. And Saudi Arabia has tried to become a host of major sporting events, from boxing matches to its pending bid to host the World Cup in 2030.

But when Saudi Arabia barged into golf last year, it was nearly unthinkable that al-Rumayyan would so swiftly become a formal ally of Monahan and the sport’s other power brokers.

“Anybody who thought about it logically would see that something was going to have to happen,” Adam Hadwin, a PGA Tour player, said on Tuesday. It was inconceivable, he suggested, that the world’s best players would only compete against each other at the four major tournaments, but an armistice “happening this quick and in this way is surprising.”

For much of the last year, LIV players have deflected questions about Saudi Arabia’s history on human rights and other matters that helped make the kingdom’s surge into golf an international flashpoint. They were, they often said, merely golfers and entertainers.

Until Tuesday, Monahan had tried to use the stain of Saudi Arabia to undercut the new league and its golfers.

“I would ask any player that has left, or any player that would ever consider leaving: Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?” he said last year.

On Tuesday, when Monahan declared that the leaders of golf’s factions had “realized that we were better off together than we were fighting or apart,” it was his tour’s players facing questions about lucrative connections to Riyadh.

“I’ve dedicated my entire life to being at golf’s highest level,” Hadwin, the tour player, said. “I’m not about to stop playing golf because the entity that I play for has joined forces with the Saudi government.”

Reporting was contributed by Andrew Das , Kevin Draper , Lauren Hirsch , Eric Lipton , Victor Mather , Ahmed Al Omran and Bill Pennington .

Kevin Draper

The PGA Tour commissioner acknowledges secrecy and hurdles on the deal.

Tuesday morning’s announcement from the PGA Tour hailed its deal to merge operations with LIV Golf as a “landmark agreement to unify the game” and end the contentious litigation between the competing golf tours.

But when Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, finally spoke to news reporters eight hours later, the agreement sounded far more tentative. He described his meeting with players about the agreement as “intense” and “certainly heated.” Monahan also acknowledged that most of the PGA Tour’s policy board — which is made up of five independent directors and five golfers — was kept in the dark about the tour’s negotiations with LIV over the last seven weeks.

He called the deal a “framework agreement” and said there were numerous issues that needed to be worked through before a “definitive agreement” was presented to the policy board to ratify, raising the possibility that it could be rejected and golf’s cold war could stretch on.

Among the issues that Monahan said were still unsettled included the future of LIV itself as an independent golf tour; the pathway for LIV players to rejoin the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour in Europe; whether PGA Tour players who declined to join LIV would somehow be financially compensated; and whether LIV players would have to forfeit some of their compensation.

“Ultimately, everything needs to be considered,” Monahan said.

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Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, said that many members of the PGA Tour policy board — more or less its board of directors — were kept in the dark about the negotiations. The agreement reached with LIV is only a framework agreement; once there is a finalized agreement, the policy board, which includes players, will have to vote to approve it.

Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, says there is no definitive agreement on whether PGA Tour players will somehow be made whole for money they turned down when they declined to join LIV, or whether LIV players will somehow have to give up money to rejoin the PGA Tour. “Ultimately, everything needs to be considered,” Monahan said.

Monahan is being asked repeatedly about his past criticism of the morals of taking LIV and Saudi money. “I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite,” the PGA Tour commissioner said. “Anytime I said anything, I said it based on the information I had at the moment, and based on someone trying to compete for the PGA Tour and our players. I accept those criticisms. But circumstances do change.”

The PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan on his just-completed meeting with players: “I would describe the meeting as intense. Certainly heated.”

More details about the merger, and how PGA Tour players feel about it, should be emerging soon. Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, is hosting a players meeting in Toronto at the site of this week’s RBC Open. After that, Monahan will take questions from the news media.

The talks of a merger began in secret meetings after the Masters in April.

For month after month, the PGA Tour and LIV Golf were content to bludgeon one another in news conferences and court filings. But in the weeks after the Masters Tournament in early April, rival executives began a series of private meetings.

Convening first in London and then Venice and ultimately San Francisco, PGA Tour leaders met with representatives of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, including Yasir al-Rumayyan, the golf fiend who is the wealth fund’s governor. According to a person familiar with the discussions, who insisted on anonymity to describe private talks, the sides effectively reached an agreement around Memorial Day but kept word of it secret from even leading executives and players until Tuesday.

The nature of the agreement — for now — keeps the PGA Tour in control, thanks to a provision that allows it to have a majority of board seats in the new company that will house the tour and LIV Golf. The wealth fund will control a minority stake in the new company, but its exclusive right to invest in it going forward opens the door for Riyadh to grow its influence in the years ahead.

But in the interim, the fate of the LIV Golf league itself appears to rest most clearly with the PGA Tour and its allies, with the new company expected to undertake an extensive analysis of the LIV format to determine whether and how it can coexist with the long-dominant tour.

A group of 9/11 relatives called the PGA Tour’s planned merger with LIV a ‘betrayal.’

A group of relatives of people killed on Sept. 11 issued a blistering criticism of the planned merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series and the PGA Tour, calling the tour and its commissioner “paid Saudi shills” for agreeing to it.

Relatives of 9/11 victims have been vocal in their opposition to the Saudi-backed LIV series almost since its inception. Most of the hijackers of the planes used in the 2001 attacks were Saudi. The 9/11 families have saved some of their harshest criticisms for those who have taken part in LIV events and hosted its tournaments. The latter group includes former President Donald J. Trump and his family, who were urged last year to cancel an event at a Trump golf course in New Jersey.

On Tuesday, one group of relatives, called 9/11 Families United, declared that its members were “shocked and deeply offended” by the merger deal. In a statement, the group called it a “betrayal” by the PGA Tour and its commissioner, Jay Monahan.

“The PGA and Monahan appear to have become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation,” said the 9/11 Families United chairman, Terry Strada.

Critics of Saudi Arabia frequently deride its investments in teams and leagues as “sportswashing” and say it is a thinly veiled effort to rehabilitate the kingdom’s reputation amid accusations that it has financed terrorism and murdered a Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi .

Strada criticized Monahan for “co-opting” the 9/11 community last year in the PGA Tour’s initial and strident opposition to the Saudi-backed golf tour, only to cut a merger deal this week.

“Mr. Monahan talked last summer about knowing people who lost loved ones on 9/11, then wondered aloud on national television whether LIV golfers ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour,” Strade wrote. “They do now — as does he. PGA Tour leaders should be ashamed of their hypocrisy and greed.”

Members of Congress from both parties weighed in.

“So weird. PGA officials were in my office just months ago talking about how the Saudis’ human rights record should disqualify them from having a stake in a major American sport,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, in a message posted on Twitter . “I guess maybe their concerns weren’t really about human rights?”

And Representative Chip Roy, a Republican of Texas, added : “In the end, it’s always about the money. Saudi Arabia just bought themselves a one-world golf government.”

During the 2020 presidential campaign, President Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for human rights abuses, most notably the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia and was a columnist for The Washington Post who wrote critically of the Saudi crown prince and the country’s government.

As one of his first foreign policy actions in office, Mr. Biden authorized the release of a U.S. intelligence report that said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved the killing.

Mr. Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents while visiting Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018 to get documents for his upcoming wedding. He was strangled by Saudi agents and then dismembered.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken happened to be in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks this week with Saudi leaders and other Gulf state officials about the possibility of the kingdom normalizing ties with Israel. It wasn’t clear if the PGA-LIV merger would be a part of discussions.

An earlier version of this blog item incorrectly stated Chris Murphy’s position in Congress. He is a senator, not a representative.

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The deal sets up a structure combining nonprofit and for-profit entities.

The merger establishes an unusual structure for how golf will be governed going forward.

The PGA Tour, which is a nonprofit organization, will remain that way and retain oversight over the “sanctioning of events and administration of the competition and rules” for the tour, according to the release announcing the merger. Basically, the PGA Tour will still have full control over how its tournaments are played.

But all of the PGA Tour’s commercial businesses and rights — such as the rights to televise its tournaments, which garner hundreds of millions of dollars annually — will be owned by a new, as-of-yet unnamed for-profit entity. That entity will also own LIV Golf as well as the commercial and business rights of the PGA European Tour, known as the DP World Tour.

The board of directors for the new for-profit entity will be chaired by Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, who also oversees LIV. Three other members of the board’s executive committee will be current members of the PGA Tour’s board, and the tour will appoint the majority of the board and hold a majority voting interest.

With the PGA Tour controlling the for-profit holding company and remaining in charge of administering its own tournaments, it may seem as though the PGA Tour will forever remain the dominant voice in men’s professional golf. But that could change.

The Public Investment Fund will invest “billions,” according to al-Rumayyan, into the new for-profit entity, and it will also hold “the exclusive right to further invest in the new entity, including a right of first refusal on any capital that may be invested in the new entity, including into the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and DP World Tour,” according to the release.

If the Public Investment Fund invests more money — because the economy goes south and sponsors pull out of tournaments, for instance — in the for-profit entity, it will surely demand more board seats and greater voting rights, potentially tilting control of men’s professional golf toward Saudi Arabia.

The merger doesn’t end the U.S. antitrust inquiry into the PGA Tour.

What does this merger mean for the Department of Justice’s antitrust inquiry into the PGA Tour ? In short: Not much.

For about a year, cheered on by LIV Golf, the Justice Department has been investigating the tight-knit relationship between the PGA Tour and other powerful entities in golf, and whether there has been any collusion within the Official World Golf Rankings. A number of high-profile LIV players, like Phil Mickelson, have been interviewed in the inquiry, and lawyers representing the PGA Tour met with Justice Department officials in Washington as recently as last month.

But while Tuesday’s merger will end litigation between LIV and the PGA Tour, it will not necessarily change the Justice Department’s case. The department’s inquiry has looked into allegations of past conduct; if there was any illegal conduct, a merger does not prevent the PGA Tour from being punished for it.

“The announcement of a merger doesn’t forgive past sins,” said Bill Baer, who led the Justice Department’s antitrust division during the Obama administration.

In fact, the merger could cause the Justice Department to even more closely scrutinize the PGA Tour, for a separate but related reason.

The federal government, through the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, reviews over 1,000 mergers for approval each year. It is not yet clear which agency will lead the review of the PGA Tour and LIV’s proposed merger, but if it is the Justice Department, it will certainly scrutinize what looks to be on its face “a merger to monopoly, eliminating competition between these two competing professional golf organizations,” Baer said.

The Department of Justice declined to comment on the merger announcement.

Victor Mather

Here is what tour leaders and players are saying about the merger.

PGA Tour officials and LIV leaders hailed the announcement on Tuesday that their competing golf series would be joining forces, but players were split on the news. Here’s what they were saying:

“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 , who is expected to be the chief executive of the new entity.

“There is no question that the LIV model has been positively transformative for golf. We believe there are opportunities for the game to evolve while also maintaining its storied history and tradition.” — The Public Investment Fund governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan , who will become chairman of the board of the merged tour.

“Awesome day today.” — Phil Mickelson , who left the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf.

“Nothing like finding out through Twitter that we’re merging with a tour that we said we’d never do that with.” — Mackenzie Hughes , PGA Tour player.

“Very curious how many people knew this deal was happening. About 5-7 people? Player run organization right?” — Michael Kim , PGA Tour player.

“This is one of the saddest days in the history of professional golf. I do believe that the governing bodies, the entities, the professional entities, have sacrificed their principles for profits.” — Brandel Chamblee , a Golf Channel analyst who has been sharply critical of the LIV Tour.

“Welfare check on Chamblee.” — LIV golfer Brooks Koepka , referring to Chamblee, who last week declared that “any yielding to or agreement with them is a deal with a murderous dictator.”

“Now that we’re all friends, is it too late for us to workshop some of these team names?” — Max Homa , PGA Tour player, referring to LIV teams like Crushers, Iron Heads and Majesticks.

While the merger is a tectonic shift for golf, nothing will change immediately in how fans watch golf. The PGA Tour, LIV Tour and DP World Tour are expected to proceed as scheduled and separately, at least through 2023. Afterward, it is unclear whether LIV will continue, and whether LIV golfers will apply to re-join the PGA Tour or DP World Tour.

Ahmed al-Omran

Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi state entity bankrolling LIV, the Public Investment Fund, said the agreement was reached after he held talks with PGA Tour officials in London. “The way we’re doing our partnership, it’s gonna be really big in many senses,” he said during an appearance on CNBC.

“We will be investing in the game of golf and doing many new things that I think will have better engagement from the players, the fans, the broadcasters, the sponsors, everyone else,” Al-Rumayyan said. He added that the PIF would invest “billions of dollars” into the sport without giving a specific timeline. “Whatever it takes,” he said.

Eric Lipton

Trump praises the PGA and LIV golf merger.

The Trump family, which has been the host of LIV tournaments in the United States and a big booster of the series’ efforts to break away from the PGA Tour, expects to continue to see tournaments played at its golf courses once the merger is complete.

“This merger is a wonderful thing for the game of golf,” Eric Trump said in an interview on Tuesday. “I truly believe that.”

His father, Donald J. Trump, also praised the deal. On Truth Social, the former president’s social media platform and personal megaphone, he wrote: “Great news from LIV Golf. A big, beautiful, and glamorous deal for the wonderful world of golf.”

The LIV series has been a boon for the Trump family, which lost major tournaments after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the capitol, including the one of golf’s four majors, the 2022 P.G.A. Championship. That tournament had been scheduled to be played at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey, but its organizer, the P.G.A. of America, stripped the club of the hosting rights days after the capitol attack.

Last July, just before the first LIV tournament was played at Trump National Bedminster, Mr. Trump predicted that the series would ultimately merge, and he suggested that players that stayed loyal to the PGA Tour were making a financial mistake.

“All of those that remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA, in all its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you will get nothing but a big ‘thank you’ from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social in July 2022 . “If you don’t take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were.”

LIV has tournaments scheduled this year at Trump-owned golf courses in Florida and New Jersey, and it just completed a tournament at a Trump course in Virginia. Negotiations are underway for more potential tournaments at Trump-owned facilities next year, though it is now unclear if the series will continue in its current format.

When asked if the Trump family had played a role in urging the PGA and LIV groups to merge, Eric Trump on Tuesday declined to comment. But he did say that the family has close friends developed over many years in the golf world, including those associated with the PGA and LIV groups.

Ahmed Al Omran

reporting from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

The merger is seen as a victory for Saudi Arabia.

The deal to merge the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, the rival league financed by billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, was seen as a victory for Saudi Arabia on multiple levels.

The merger marked the greatest success to date of Saudi Arabia’s ambition to become a player in global sports. From the outset, its billion-dollar play for control of golf seemed like nothing less than an attempt to seize control of an entire sport.

Now, by merging with the PGA Tour, the oil-rich kingdom has gained a foothold that guarantees it outsize influence in the game’s future. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi state entity bankrolling LIV, the Public Investment Fund, will become chairman of the new golf organization. The sovereign wealth fund will have right of first refusal on new investments in the merged tour, according to the statement announcing the merger .

The rival tours had clashed for months in litigation that will now draw to a close, so the deal will protect Mr. Al-Rumayyan, a golf aficionado, from the prospect of being deposed and scrutinized in American courtrooms. He also serves as chairman of Aramco, the Saudi state oil company, which has been a major sponsor of Formula 1 racing.

The deal could also lend legitimacy to the kingdom’s entry as a major player in global sports in the form of a serious partner and not just a well-funded disrupter.

Critics have accused Saudi Arabia of using its spending power in sports to distract from its poor human rights record, but Saudi officials have repeatedly rejected these allegations.

At the same time, this deal could serve as a blueprint for future moves as the kingdom grows its ambitions to further expand its influence and reach in sports and entertainment. ‌‌

By establishing a start-up golf tour that rose rapidly to become enough of a threat for the PGA Tour and bring them to the negotiation table, Saudi Arabia could see potential to do the same in other arenas. Under the terms of the deal, the Public Investment Fund holds veto power on bringing any new investors, giving themselves insurance from any possible dilution of their power in the new arrangement.

The sovereign wealth fund has already managed to achieve a quick return for their investment in Newcastle United as the English soccer club qualified for the UEFA Champions League merely 18 months after it was purchased.

The announcement of the merger with the PGA Tour comes less than one year since LIV’s first event in June 2022 .

In addition to soccer and golf, Saudi Arabia is eyeing investments in cricket, tennis and e-sports via Savvy Games Group, which is backed by the sovereign wealth fund. The group plans to invest $37.8 billion to make Saudi Arabia a global hub for gaming.

The kingdom has also served as host to major sports events including Formula 1 races, major boxing matches and WWE as part of plans to diversify its economy away from heavy reliance on oil.

Saudi Arabia is making a major push in soccer, too.

Golf is not the only sport where Saudi Arabia is looking to increase its influence: It is also making a major play in soccer.

Its most prominent investment to date was its purchase last year of the English Premier League team Newcastle United, a deal that gave the kingdom, through its huge Public Investment Fund, a foothold in the world’s richest soccer competition. But Saudi Arabia is also bidding to host soccer’s World Cup in 2030, and this week the country’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, announced that the PIF would invest more than $1 billion in the country’s domestic league in hopes of making it one of the 10 best leagues in the world.

As Tariq Panja and Ahmed Al Omran reported in The Times last week, the plan is focused on attracting more than a dozen of the world’s best players to the Saudi league by offering them some of the richest deals in sports history. Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time world player of the year, moved to Saudi Arabia in January, and reports of nine-figure offers to others — including Lionel Messi — are rampant. The French striker Karim Benzema accepted one this week : He will join the Jeddah-based club Al-Ittihad in a multiyear deal that will make him one of the world’s best-paid players.

Similar in ambition to the Saudi-financed LIV series in golf, the kingdom’s plan for soccer involves the PIF. This week it took a controlling stake in four of the Saudi league’s biggest clubs in what appears to be a centralized effort — supported at the highest levels of the Saudi state — to turn the country’s domestic league, a footnote on the global soccer stage, into a destination for top talent.

The basics of the sweeping golf merger.

After two years of sniping, lawsuits and ill will, the major men’s golf tours agreed to merge on Tuesday. The blockbuster announcement came as a surprise given the fierce competition and legal action among the tours. Here’s what we know, and don’t know.

What happened on Tuesday?

The PGA Tour, which runs golf in North America; the PGA European Tour, which is known as the DP World Tour and holds events in much of the rest of the world; and the upstart LIV Tour agreed to merge their operations.

The Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which spent billions to launch the LIV Tour, will invest in the new company, and the governor of that fund will become its chairman.

All the lawsuits among the tours will be ended as part of the deal.

How did we get here?

The LIV Tour started last year and offered big-name players from the other tours huge sums to jump ship. Many did, notably Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Cameron Smith. Some veterans like Phil Mickelson also joined. Those players were suspended from the PGA Tour as a result.

Others, including Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, did not take reported offers. Many players and officials of the PGA Tour were sharply critical of LIV, both for dividing the golf world and for associating with the Saudi government and its poor human rights record.

How will things change?

There is a lot we don’t know at this point. The LIV Tour had team events as a focus of its model, and in its statement, the PGA Tour mentioned that the tours planned to “grow team golf going forward.”

But there are many unknowns. Will the tours continue to operate separately? The statement referred only to “a cohesive schedule of events.”

Will the enormous disparity between the LIV purses and the purses on the other tours remain? Will LIV continue to hold 54-hole, three-day tournaments with shotgun starts and no cuts, while the other tours maintain their traditional four-day formats?

The PGA Tour did say that the tours would develop a process for LIV players who want to reapply for membership with the two older tours after the 2023 season.

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Michel romps to victory at 67th Border Open

Victorian Kyle Michel has put on a superb display of iron play to take out the 67th cluBarham Border Open at CluBarham Golf and Sports Club.

The longest running event on the adidas PGA Pro-Am Series circuit, the two-day tournament attracted a field full of familiar faces but it was Michel who added his name to an impressive honour roll of past winners.

A one-stroke leader after Round 1, Michel wasted no time in asserting his ascendancy in Round 2 on Sunday.

His bogey-free round of 9-under 64 gave him a 13-under total and five-shot win from fellow Victorians Lachlan Armour (70) and Josh Younger (70).

Faced with windy conditions, Michel showed wonderful control of his ball flight which yielded birdies on three of the four par 3s.

“Your iron control had to be important on a windy day like today,” said Michel.

“I managed to get the distances right on pretty much all of them and roll in a few putts.”

HOW THE WINNING ROUND UNFOLDED

Starting his round from the par-4 fourth hole for the second straight day, Michel opened with a par before embarking on a birdie blitz.

He picked up shots at five, six and seven and then made it four in the space of five holes with birdie at the par-3 ninth.

Birdies at the par-5 11th and par-3 12th got Michel to 6-under through nine holes, finishing up a faultless round with closing birdies at 18, two and three.

WHAT THE WINNER SAID

“I got off to a really good start birdieing three of the first four holes,” said Michel.

“I made another birdie on my sixth hole, the par 3, and managed to get to 6-under through the first nine holes and kind of went on with it from there.”

LEADERBOARD RUNDOWN 1          Kyle Michel                   69-64—133 T2        Lachlan Armour           68-70—138 T2        Josh Younger               68-70—138 4          Andrew Kelly                66-73—139 5          Bradley Kivimets          67-73—140 T6        Konrad Ciupek             72-69—141 T6        James Gordon             67-74—141 T6        Michael Isherwood      71-70—141

The adidas PGA Pro-Am Series moves further north into New South Wales on Thursday for the $50,000 PSC Insurance Brokers Wagga Wagga Pro-Am at Wagga Wagga Country Club.

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