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LIV Golf announces teams, players for 2023; Four PGA Tour players, Pieters officially join league

Charlie Crowhurst/LIV Golf

LIV Golf is rolling out its teams and rosters this week on the eve of the circuit’s second season.

Rather than announce its members at once for the 2023 campaign, the Saudi-backed league sent out a press release stating its players and squads will be trickled out just days before the 14-event season begins in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. The team names and captains have been previously announced, and nearly all of the LIV’s marquee attractions from its inaugural season are expected to return.

Unlike last season, it is not expected that players and teams will change every event. There are at least two team name changes, with the Niblicks turning into Range Goats GC and Punch going to Ripper GC.

Torque, captained by Joaquin Niemann, was the first team announced on Wednesday, with Mito Pereira, Sebastian Munoz and David Puig rounding out the team. Golf Digest has previously reported that Pereira and Munoz were expected to join the league in Year 2, but their moves became official on Wednesday. Smash GC, headlined by Brooks Koepka, added Matthew Wolff to the roster, after Wolff played last year with Phil Mickelson’s team. Brooks' brother Chase Koepka and Jason Kokrak are also on the team. The Majesticks, led by Henrik Stenson and Ian Poulter, are bringing back the same team as last year with Lee Westwood and Sam Horsfield. The 4 Aces return with Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Pat Perez, with Peter Uihlein taking the place of Talor Gooch.

In total four new players from the PGA Tour signed with LIV Golf ahead of its second season, as Danny Lee and Brendan Stelle joined Munoz and Pereira in defecting. Former Ryder Cup star Thomas Pieters, who earlier in the week complained about not getting invited to the Genesis Invitational, has also jumped to LIV. Pieters, No. 34 in the world, played mostly on the DP World Tour.

RELATED: Inside the LIV Golf-PGA Tour battle

Below are the team names, team captains, rosters and schedule for the 2023 season. The names and rosters will be updated as they are announced. Both individual and team competitions similar to the inaugural season will return to LIV Golf in 2023. Last month the league announced a multiyear media deal with the CW, giving LIV Golf its first traditional television broadcast partner in the United States.

LIV Golf Teams and Rosters

Torque GC : Captain Joaquin Niemann, Mito Pereira, Sebastian Munoz, David Puig Majesticks GC : Captains Ian Poulter and Henrik Stenson, Lee Westwood, Sam Horsfield Smash GC : Captain Brooks Koepka, Chase Koepka, Matt Wolff, Jason Kokrak 4 Aces GC : Captain Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Pat Perez, Peter Uihlein Fire Balls GC : Captain Sergio Garcia, Abe Ancer, Carlos Ortiz, Eugenio Chacarra HY Flyers GC : Captain Phil Mickelson, James Piot, Brendan Steele, Cam Tringale Iron Heads GC : Captain Kevin Na, Scott Vincent, Danny Lee, Sihwan Kim RangeGoats GC : Captain Bubba Watson, Talor Gooch, Thomas Pieters, Harold Varner III Ripper GC : Captain Cam Smith, Marc Leishman, Matt Jones, Jed Morgan Cleeks GC : Captain Martin Kaymer, Bernd Wiesberger, Richard Bland, Graeme McDowell Crushers GC : Captain Bryson DeChambeau, Paul Casey, Anirban Lahiri, Charles Howell III Stinger GC : Captain Louis Oosthuizen, Branden Grace, Dean Burmester, Charl Schwartzel

Feb. 24-26: El Camaleón Golf Club, Playa Del Carmen, Mexico March 17-19: The Gallery Golf Club, Tucson, Ariz. March 31-April 2: Orange County National, Orlando, Fla. April 21-23: The Grange Golf Club, Adelaide, Australia April 28-30: Sentosa Golf Club, Singapore May 12-14: Cedar Ridge Country Club, Broken Arrow, Okla. May 26-28: Trump National Golf Club, Washington, D.C. June 30-July 2: Real Club Valderrama, Sotogrande, Spain July 7-9: Centurion Club, London, England Aug. 4-6: The Old White Course, White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. Aug. 11-13: Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster, N.J. Sept. 22-24: Rich Harvest Farms, Sugar Grove, Ill. Oct. 20-22: Trump National Doral, Miami Nov. 3-5: Royal Greens Golf & Country Club, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

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Analysis: A year after PGA Tour’s surprise deal with Saudis, still no clarity on where golf is going

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan pauses while speaking about the death of PGA player Grayson Murray during the Charles Schwab Challenge golf tournament at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, Saturday, May 25, 2024. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

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DUBLIN, Ohio (AP) — PGA champion Xander Schauffele was on the 10th tee at Muirfield Village for a late Monday afternoon practice round to start the week of the Memorial. Just the sight of him was enough to bring back memories of golf then and now.

So much has changed. So little is known. And there’s still no clarity where golf is headed and how to repair such a splintered sport created by Saudi money and a secret deal .

It was a year ago at the Memorial that Schauffele was playing nine holes of the Wednesday pro-am, starting on the 10th tee. Two of his amateur partners that day were PGA Tour board members — Ed Herlihy, the board chairman, and Jimmy Dunne.

Unbeknownst to Schauffele — unbeknownst to every PGA Tour player — was that Dunne and Herlihy, along with PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, had been secretly meeting with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia , the financial backers of the rival LIV Golf circuit that already had lured away some of golf’s biggest names with guaranteed riches.

The pro-am was on May 31. The famous “framework agreement” for a commercial deal among the PGA Tour, PIF and the European tour had been signed on May 30.

Most curious was when Herlihy saw a familiar face and suggested a phone call in the near future because “we have a lot of good things coming.”

It wasn’t until six days later that Monahan and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the PIF governor, appeared on CNBC to announce that former enemies were now in business together . It remains one of the most stunning developments in golf — not just making the deal with the Saudis, but keeping the entire membership (and the majority of the PGA Tour board) in the dark.

That was June 6, 2023. It’s rare in golf for anything to be identified by a date.

Monahan flew from New York to the Canadian Open for a player meeting later that day and was blistered by players who wanted answers.

A year later, does anyone have them?

For all the moving parts — and there have been plenty — what often gets overlooked is one important aspect to the framework agreement. While it was never finalized by the end of 2023, the stated deadline, it did away with the antitrust lawsuit by PIF-funded LIV and the countersuit by the PGA Tour. The tour already was said to have spent close to $50 million in legal fees.

The rest of the road forward has trudged uphill (still no commercial deal with PIF).

And it has moved quickly and quirkily.

Tiger Woods was appointed to the board with no term limits. Rory McIlroy resigned from the board and then was put back into play as a non-voting member of a negotiating committee , but only after a failed attempt for him to replace Webb Simpson .

From the business side, Randall Stephenson of AT&T resigned from the board abruptly last summer over the proposed deal with the Saudis. In the last month alone, Dunne and board member Mark Flaherty resigned.

It’s a lot easier to keep track of birdies and bogeys.

There were two Senate hearings. The agreement got the attention of the Justice Department, which led to both sides in July doing away with an anti-poaching clause in the agreement. Four months later, Jon Rahm was on his way to LIV .

The new for-profit company known as PGA Tour Enterprises received interest from private equity, and the tour narrowed its list of suitors to Strategic Sports Group by the end of the year. SSG, a group of North American pro sports owners led by Fenway Sports Group, announced a $1.5 billion investment that could be twice that much.

The tour is still negotiating for PIF to become a minority investor, but it took until March before players on the PGA Tour Enterprises board even met with Al-Rumayyan .

Jordan Spieth is on the board. He replaced McIlroy, who resigned in November. Spieth said two weeks ago that any suggestions that negotiations are “in a bad place and are moving slowly” are not true.

“I think ultimately we’ll end up in a place where professional golf is maybe the best that it’s ever been. I think both sides believe that,” he said at Colonial.

Still no details. No clear road map.

It was Spieth who said in late January that with SSG as an investor, he didn’t think a deal was needed with PIF except for unification in the sport. That put him at odds with McIlroy, who wants desperately for golf’s best players to be brought back together more than four times a year at the majors.

There even is friction inside the PGA Tour — lingering bad feelings toward Monahan for going behind the players’ backs, and even which players were worth how much under a first-of-its-kind program that distributed $930 million in equity shares .

Perhaps the biggest change from a year ago is players now have a majority voice on the board. The argument has always been that while it’s their tour, the players are more skilled with a 4-iron than running a business valued to be worth upward of $10 billion.

But the bigger question is what exactly do they want? Where is golf headed, and how does it get put back together?

Schauffele made the biggest putt of his life to win the PGA Championship by one shot over Bryson DeChambeau, who reminded golf fans what they’ve been missing. He’s an entertainer. Brooks Koepka won the PGA Championship last year and was put on the Ryder Cup team with 11 players who stayed loyal to the PGA Tour.

Koepka, DeChambeau, Rahm, Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson are still only available to watch on CW, the app or the network.

They are in Houston this week if anyone was wondering.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

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The PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger, explained: Who won, who lost, what it means for fans

The pga tour-liv golf merger raises more questions than answers. here's an explanation of what it all means now, and what it could mean in the future..

In one of the most consequential moments in golf history, the PGA Tour and LIV Golf announced on Tuesday morning that they would combine operations to create an as-yet-unnamed new worldwide golf entity . The agreement ends litigation between the two tours, provides a potential pathway for LIV Golf players to rejoin the PGA Tour, and sets up a framework where Saudi Arabia 's Public Investment Fund (PIF) now has a significant stake in the future of men's professional golf.

Much will come to light in the coming hours, days and weeks, but here's what we know and can reasonably speculate so far.

What was the original source of the friction between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf?

LIV, funded by Saudi Arabia's virtually bottomless PIF, grew out of a long-running series of discussions between Tour and Saudi officials that ultimately went nowhere. The LIV Golf tour launched last year with the promise of vast paychecks, a limited schedule, vast paychecks, 54-hole no-cut events, vast paychecks ... and also vast paychecks. Players like Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson leaped at reported nine-figure offerings to play for LIV, and even unknown players were suddenly cashing mammoth checks just for joining the breakaway tour.

The PGA Tour branded those who jumped to LIV as, in effect, traitors to the Tour's legacy. Players like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy offered impassioned defenses of the Tour. Players who joined LIV were criticized for taking money from Saudi Arabia, which has a horrendous record of documented human rights violations. Many were dismissed as irrelevant faded stars, and all saw their world rankings plummet as they played in events not sanctioned by the Official World Golf Rankings.

But LIV players currently hold two of the four major titles, rendering the "LIV is irrelevant" argument obsolete. Not only that, the PGA Tour has adopted (or is planning to adopt) many of LIV's most notable features, from elevated paychecks to no-cut events to team competition, a sign that LIV was posing a threat from a golf perspective, if not a moral one.

Both sides engaged in litigation against the other, and both sides' defenders — from players to commentators to fans — launched broadsides against the other that ranged from angry to downright vicious. How those antagonists will reconcile in the wake of this announcement is an open question.

How did this agreement come about so suddenly?

That's a question a whole lot of people, starting with the players on the PGA Tour, would like to know. Apparently no one outside of a small coterie of top-of-the-organization members of the tours knew this was coming. Players expressed shock and surprise — two-time major winner Collin Morikawa, for instance, found out on Twitter . Even Greg Norman, the brash, outspoken CEO of LIV Golf, apparently only found out via phone call just moments before the announcement was made.

What led to this agreement?

It's still unclear why the two tours (three, including the DP World Tour, the former European Tour) chose this moment to make the deal, but several factors are obviously in play. LIV Golf is struggling to attract both viewers and a network to show its tournaments. The PGA Tour is facing a Department of Justice investigation over potential anticompetitive behavior related to LIV. The PIF was subject to discovery, and a potential in-depth review of its operations, in the lawsuits and counter-lawsuits involving the Tour. And the Tour was facing growing discontent from its star members, who wanted a larger share of purses and guaranteed money.

In short, both sides had wolves at the door, and both are now — at least in theory — stronger together rather than apart.

What does the structure of this agreement mean for golf?

In broad terms, the merger agreement — at least, according to the press release announced Tuesday morning — calls for the PGA Tour to handle golf-related oversight, the "governance" of the new merged entity. Each of the three tours would be responsible for the so-called "inside-the-ropes" operations of its own tour — site selection, tournament operations, rules enforcement, and so on.

The more significant element of the merger concerns its financial structure. Per the press release, PIF "will make a capital investment into the new entity to facilitate its growth and success." Further down in the release is this more significant element: "PIF will initially be the exclusive investor in the new entity, alongside the PGA TOUR, LIV Golf and the DP World Tour. Going forward, PIF will have 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 (emphasis added)." In other words, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund will provide the seed money for the new operation, will be the only investor, and will have the right to invest — and refuse outside investment — in the PGA Tour itself.

It may be too early to say that LIV Golf bought the PGA Tour, but according to the Tour's own words, Saudi Arabia will own a significant percentage of whatever golf is to become.

What does this mean for the players on the PGA Tour?

If there's a "loser" in this whole scenario, it's the Tour players who were cajoled, guilt-tripped and outright threatened not to leave the Tour for the vast riches of the PIF-backed LIV ... only to watch the Tour dip right into those same riches. And while the money available to players through tournaments will grow, the generational sums offered to LIV's first players surely won't.

Tiger Woods, for instance, turned down a reported $800 million to join LIV. But Woods will be fine without that money. A player like Rickie Fowler, for instance, was offered as much as $75 million to join LIV, but opted to stay with the PGA Tour. It's highly unlikely he'll be offered that sum to join LIV now.

What does this mean for the players on the LIV Golf tour?

Vindication and salvation. Players who jumped to LIV late in their careers, like Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter, have cashed in sums that they never would have earned on the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour. All the criticism they took for accepting Saudi "blood money" is, in effect, irrelevant, since that same money now bankrolls the entire venture of men's professional golf.

Plus, LIV players now have a pathway back onto the PGA Tour and into the majors, which was one of the key reasons against joining LIV in the first place. LIV players can enjoy the riches they were granted in 2022, and then potentially jump right back onto the PGA Tour in 2024.

What does the merger mean for the fans?

From a pure golf perspective, this is nothing but good news. The best in the game will once again potentially play against one another on a regular basis. Interesting new versions of golf, including team play, will come to the game as a whole, not just LIV. The game will expand far beyond the boundaries of the United States, bringing in a whole new international contingent of fans and, eventually, players.

However, the fans who were disgusted at LIV for its Saudi origins will be no more inclined to watch a Saudi-backed PGA Tour, either. The new venture will test American fans' appetite for Saudi-backed ventures ... which could factor significantly into American sports in the future.

What does the PGA Tour-LIV agreement mean for future Saudi investment in American sports?

Golf, as embodied by Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods, is as American as it gets: dramatic, big-hitting, celebratory. But golf now is under the financial auspices of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Previously, Saudi investment in existing major sports had been limited to individual teams ( Newcastle United in the Premier League, for instance) or individual events (as with Formula 1), but this marks the first time that Saudi Arabia has taken a significant financial stake in an established worldwide league. The implications for the future of golf — as well as other major sports — are unclear, but the PIF is clearly making a play to take a key role in the biggest sports on the planet.

Much remains to be revealed, and much more to play out, but this much is clear: Tuesday marked a historic day in golf, one whose effects will resonate for decades — one way or another.

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LIV Golf players list: Everyone who has quit PGA Tour and DP World Tour to play in the 2023 series

Cameron smith, dustin johnson and phil mickelson are among other players to have pledged their commitment to liv golf.

When the highly contentious LIV Invitational Series resumes in 2024, it will boast reigning Masters champion and world No 3-ranked Jon Rahm as the latest of golf’s most famous players who have signed up to play .

Rahm , a four-time winner on the 2023 PGA Tour, member of Europe’s Ryder Cup -winning team and prior critic of the LIV format , joins the league bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in a deal reportedly worth up to £450m.

Rumours had begun to swirl over the Spaniard’s future, including when he was notably absent from the line-up of golfers committed to the PGA Tour’s American Express stop in January, as well as withdrawing from the Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy -backed TGL league’s inaugural season last month.

And despite admitting his decision to join LIV was a “risk” in terms of his future participation in the Ryder Cup – the 29-year-old will need to remain a member of the DP World Tour to be eligible for the biennial USA vs Europe showdown – Rahm told Fox News : “Things have changed a lot in the game of golf over the past two years and I’ve seen the growth of LIV Golf and the innovation.

“That’s why I’m here today. This decision was made for many reasons and what I thought was best for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great deal.”

The 2024 LIV Golf schedule will feature 14 stops, including new events in Las Vegas, Houston and Nashville.

2024 LIV Golf Schedule 2-4 February:  LIV Mayakoba — El Cameleon Country Club 8-10 February : LIV Las Vegas — Las Vegas Country Club 1-3 March:  LIV Saudi Arabia — TBD 8-10 March:  LIV Hong Kong — Hong Kong Golf Club 5-7 April:  LIV “USA” — Location and course TBD 26-28 April:  LIV Adelaide — The Grange Golf Club 3-5 May:  LIV Singapore — The Serapong Golf Club 7-9 June:  LIV Houston — The Golf Club of Houston 21-23 June:  LIV Nashville — The Grove Golf Club 12-14 July:  LIV Andalucia — Real Club Valderrama 25-28 July:  LIV UK: Staffordshire — JCB Golf and Country Club 16-19 August:  LIV Greenbrier — The Old White Course at the Greenbrier TBD:  LIV Golf Individual Championships TBD:  LIV Golf Team Championships.

Who played in the 2023 LIV Golf series and how did it work?

The financial package put forward by LIV Golf seduced Dustin Johnson , Lee Westwood , and Sergio Garcia from the get-go last year, with Phil Mickelson, Ian Poulter and plenty of others signing up soon after.

Mickelson was reportedly paid $200m (£159m) just for turning up, while Johnson, the top-ranked player to have joined so far, earning $150m (£119m). Johnson announced his resignation from the PGA Tour in order to concentrate fully on the new tournament fronted by former world No 1 Greg Norman, but the PGA has since suspended all players to have made the switch.

Besides the eye-watering signing-on-fees, the prize money on offer is staggering. There is a $25m (£19.9m) purse to be split between the 48 players per tournament in the eight-event series, with the winner pocketing $4m (£3.2m) and the loser earning $120k (£95k).

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The format is also very different from traditional majors. There are 54 rather than 72 holes for a start – “LIV” is 54 in Roman numerals – there is a “shotgun” start where players tee off at the same time, and golfers are grouped into teams of four.

Johnson is captain of the “4 Aces”, Mickelson is leading the “Hy Flyers” and Poulter is affiliated to “Majesticks”.

The first 2022 tournament was held in England, with subsequent events taking place in Portland, Bedminster, Boston, Chicago, Bangkok, Jeddah and Miami.

In the build-up, players faced questions about “sportswashing” and whether Saudi Arabia is seeking to deflect attention from its human rights record by investing so heavily in the sport. Mickelson previously called the Saudis “scary motherf**kers” before backtracking.

“I don’t condone human rights violations at all,” he said. “I’m certainly aware of what has happened with Jamal Khashoggi and I think it’s terrible. I have also seen the good that the game of golf has done throughout history and I believe LIV Golf is going to do a lot of good for the game as well.”

Graeme McDowell said “we’re not politicians, we’re professional golfers,” in regards to the country’s human rights record and Talor Gooch responded “I’m a golfer, I’m not that smart”. Poulter and Westwood both said they would not answer “hypothetical questions” when asked whether they would have played in a tournament held by Vladimir Putin or in South Africa during Apartheid.

Four-time major winner Brooks Koepka, former US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau and ex-Masters champion Patrick Reed signed up to the breakaway competition after the first event, while Paul Casey was also confirmed in early July.

Open champion Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann were then among a fresh wave of players unveiled by LIV Golf.

The 2023 series kicked off in Mayakoba in February, followed by tournaments in Tucson, Orlando, Adelaide, Singapore, Tulsa, DC, Valderrama, London, Greenbrier, Bedminster, Chicago, Miami and Jeddah.

2023 LIV Golf players list A-Z

Here are all 48 players who competed in the 14-event series in 2023.

There were 12 teams in total, with 13 major champions in the field, 16 nations represented, and a combined 125 Ryder Cup appearances.

Four players – Dustin Johnson, Martin Kaymer, Brooks Koepka and Lee Westwood – have held the title of world No 1. Scroll down for the teams and more analysis.

• Abraham Ancer
• Richard Bland
• Dean Burmester
• Laurie Canter
• Eugenio Chacarra
• Bryson DeChambeau
• Sergio Garcia
• Talor Gooch
• Branden Grace
• Sam Horsfield
• Charles Howell III
• Dustin Johnson
• Martin Kaymer
• Brooks Koepka
• Chase Koepka
• Jason Kokrak
• Anirban Lahiri
• Marc Leishman
• Graeme McDowell
• Phil Mickelson
• Jediah Morgan
• Sebastian Munoz
• Joaquin Niemann
• Andy Ogletree
• Louis Oosthuizen
• Carlos Ortiz
• Mito Pereira
• Thomas Pieters
• Ian Poulter
• Patrick Reed
• Charl Schwartzel
• Cameron Smith
• Brendan Steele
• Henrik Stenson
• Cameron Tringale
• Peter Uihlein
• Harold Varner III
• Scott Vincent
• Bubba Watson
• Lee Westwood
• Bernd Wiesberger
• Matthew Wolff

LIV Golf 2023 team names and roster

• 4Aces – Dustin Johnson (captain), Patrick Reed, Pat Perez, Peter Uihlein
• Cleeks – Martin Kaymer (captain), Graeme McDowell, Richard Bland, Bernd Wiesberger
• Crushers – Bryson DeChambeau (captain), Paul Casey, Charles Howell III, Anirban Lahiri
• Fireballs – Sergio Garcia (captain), Abraham Ancer, Carlos Ortiz, Eugenio Chacarra
• HyFlyers – Phil Mickelson (captain), Cameron Tringale, James Piot, Brendan Steele
• Iron Heads – Kevin Na (captain), Sihwan Kim, Scott Vincent, Danny Lee
• Majesticks – Ian Poulter (co-captain), Henrik Stenson (co-captain), Lee Westwood (co-captain), Sam Horsfield
• RangeGoats – Bubba Watson (captain), Harold Varner III, Talor Gooch, Thomas Pieters
• Ripper – Cameron Smith (captain), Marc Leishman, Matt Jones, Jed Morgan
• Smash – Brooks Koepka (captain), Matthew Wolff, Jason Kokrak, Chase Koepka
• Stinger – Louis Oosthuizen (captain), Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace, Dean Burmester
• Torque – Joaquin Niemann (captain), Mito Pereira, Sebastian Munoz, David Puig

Analysis: LIV Invitational is morally bankrupt and won’t revitalise golf

By Matt Butler

The name is quite clever: LIV. In Roman numerals it is 54 and the players in this new incarnation of golf kicking off in the exotic locale of Hemel Hempstead will play that many holes. Neat, huh?

Of course, you might say that a new sporting franchise bolstered by limitless petrodollars would be expected to be creative with its branding.

But the new kid in town is a sign that golf is in desperate need of some love. Whether that love comes from a despotic regime with a dreadful record on human rights is something for Phil Mickelson , Dustin Johnson , Lee Westwood and, err, James Piot to ponder as they chase a ball around a course for a share of 20 mill a tournament.

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And if you put aside the ickiness of the Saudi regime behind Jamal Khashoggi ’s killers providing the lipstick and mascara to the game, the concept of a quickfire bunch of tournaments with a set season and eight-figure sums of cash riding on each one sounds intriguing – even if the reason why players joined appears to be all about the money. Not that cold hard cash as a motivator is news, especially in the world of golf.

The rules are thus: everyone tees off at once. It is called a shotgun start, which sounds a little violent, given the paymasters, but I guess bonesaw start would have been too much. Twelve teams of four play in a match-play format, with individual members also competing in a strokeplay competition. There is no cut to miss. So far, so mildly diverting.

However, toe-curlingly twee “Camden Market-style” stalls, a Craig David and Jessie J gig and Sporty Spice on the decks post-match does not sound like much of an answer to the organiser’s promise to “supercharge” golf.

Read Matt’s full analysis here

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PGA Tour and LIV Golf to merge, ending "disruption and distraction" and antitrust lawsuit

By Aimee Picchi

Edited By Anne Marie Lee , Irina Ivanova

Updated on: June 6, 2023 / 7:27 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

The PGA Tour said it will merge with the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf, ending a bitter rivalry between the two groups that sparked an antitrust lawsuit as well as accusations of unfair behavior.

The deal will end all litigation between the parties, the organizations said in a Tuesday statement .

The merger comes after LIV Golf poached several high-profile players such as Phil Mickelson with lucrative guaranteed money contracts. That sparked an acrimonious  rivalry  between the two groups, with the PGA Tour saying players who teed off in the LIV league were no longer eligible for PGA Tour events. In response, Mickelson and other golfers filed an antitrust lawsuit last year against the PGA Tour, accusing it of running an illegal monopoly.

"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 the statement.

The merger will create "a fair and objective process for any players who desire to re-apply for membership with the PGA TOUR or the DP World Tour" after the 2023 season, the statement added.

LIV Golf has sparked controversy over its backing from Saudi Arabia, with some critics calling the funding "sportswashing," or using financial strings to games and teams to help improve a group or nation's image and standing. It's an allegation that Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Saud, Saudi Arabia's minister of sport, told "60 Minutes" in April he disagreed with, arguing that the league helped bring people together.

The new group formed by the entity, which hasn't yet been named, will tap board members including the PGA's Monahan, who will be CEO, as well as Saudi Arabia's Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who is the governor of the country's Public Investment Fund. 

Which golfers did LIV hold contracts with?

LIV Golf signed contracts with top golfers from around the world. Aside from U.S. player Mickelson, LIV had also signed several other notable American golfers, including: 

• Talor Gooch
• Bryson DeChambeau
• Dustin Johnson
• Brooks Koepka

Who owns PGA?

The PGA Tour is a nonprofit, so it doesn't have an owner. On Tuesday, the group said it will remain a tax-exempt organization following the merger. 

It noted that Jay Monahan will continue as commissioner and Ed Herlihy will remain as PGA Tour Policy Board chairman after the merger.

Who owns LIV?

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is the majority owner of LIV Golf, with a 93% stake,  according to Golf.com. 

The Public Investment Fund is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, with $620 billion of assets under management.

What are the players saying about the surprise merger?

Most players learned that the PGA and LIV Golf are joining forces by social media, in part because a news outlet leaked the news before PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan could disclose the news.

"I love finding out about morning news on Twitter," two-time major champion Collin Morikawa tweeted.

Some players also expressed consternation about the merger.

I feel betrayed, and will not not be able to trust anyone within the corporate structure of the PGA TOUR for a very long time — Wesley Bryan (@wesleybryangolf) June 6, 2023

Wesley Bryan tweeted, "I feel betrayed, and will not ... be able to trust anyone within the corporate structure of the PGA Tour for a very long time."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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PGA Tour-LIV Golf Timeline: One year has passed and golf fans still are waiting for a deal

It was one of those news drops all golf fans never will forget.

June 6, 2023: The PGA Tour and LIV Golf announce a "framework agreement" to merge business entities after weeks of secret negotiations.

The PGA Tour, whose roots go back more than a century, and LIV Golf, the upstart league launched in June 2021 with tour antagonist Greg Norman as its face and financed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, forming an alliance?

This cannot be happening.

After two years of player poaching, lawsuits, nasty insults from both sides and talk of Saudi Arabia's atrocious human rights violations, the vision of PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan side-by-side on a CNBC set detailing how the rival leagues will combine commercial businesses and rights into a new for-profit company, and drop all lawsuits, truly was surreal.

How has that gone?

At first, we were told that the "merger" — later reframed as an "agreement" — would be finalized by Dec. 31 and the PIF would be writing a very large check (somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion) to boost PGA Tour Enterprises.  But New Year's Eve came and went without a deal, and now, one year later, we appear no closer than we were six months ago.

And after a brief cease-fire, some members, from both sides, resumed taking shots at each other, and LIV Golf, which has headquarters in West Palm Beach, went back to poaching PGA Tour stars.

"It's messy, and it has been and it seems to get messier every week," Seth Waugh, CEO of the PGA of America, said at the PGA Championship. "I don't think the game is big enough for two tours like that, and I think we are diluting the game in a way that is not healthy.

"I hope there's urgency because I do think it's doing damage to the tour, to the game. … I just don't think it's a healthy situation right now."

Here is a timeline of the ebbs and flows of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf when it comes to a possible merger:

If you can't beat them, join them

While surprised that everything came together so quickly, Rory McIlroy said the PGA Tour’s partnership with the PIF ultimately will be good for the game. Speaking the week the agreement was announced, McIlroy said much of it has been mischaracterized and it should not be viewed as a merger with LIV Golf.

“LIV has nothing to do with this," he said. "It’s the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the Public Investment Fund that are basically partnering to create a new company. That’s where I was a little frustrated. All I’ve wanted to do was protect the future of the PGA Tour and protect the aspirational nature of what the PGA Tour stands for. I think this does this.

"If you look at the structure, this new company sits above everything else. Jay on top of that. Technically, anyone involved with LIV would answer to Jay. The PIF was going to keep spending money in golf. At least the PGA Tour controls how that money is spent. You’re dealing with one of the biggest sovereign wealth funds in the world. Would you rather fight against or have them as a partner?"

Greg Norman's message to staff

Although not involved in the negotiations, LIV's chief executive and commissioner Norman, who lives in Palm Beach Gardens, had a positive message for the staff. Norman, who was left out of the negotiations and not mentioned in any of the news releases associated with the agreement, told more than 100 people on a 30-minute call that LIV will see no operational changes and that work is already being done on a 2025 schedule.

“The spigot is now wide open for commercial sponsorships, blue-chip companies, TV networks," he said. "LIV is and will continue to be a standalone enterprise. Our business model will not change. We changed history and we’re not going anywhere."

Players losing trust in Monahan

The main topic of conversation at the U.S. Open at the Los Angeles Country Club was the announcement the previous week. Some players were open about expressing their anger and lack of trust in the tour and Monahan.

"I think it gets to a point where you want to have faith in management, and I want to have faith that this is the best thing for all of us, but it's clear that that's not the consensus," Jon Rahm said. "I think the general feeling is that a lot of people feel a bit of betrayal from management."

Those words were prophetic coming from a man who, six months later, became the biggest name to defect from the PGA Tour.

Agreement dissected on Capitol Hill

About a month after the agreement, drama played out on Capitol Hill with tour COO Ron Price and policy board independent director Jimmy Dunne, of North Palm Beach, testifying at a Senate investigations subcommittee hearing.

They were grilled by a bipartisan committee that was concerned about antitrust violations. Aside from politicians attempting to bully Price and Dunne or just looking for air time, one of the more interesting revelations was the PIF proposing Tiger Woods and McIlroy being granted ownership of LIV Golf franchises. This idea was shot down by the PGA Tour.

Tiger getting involved

Before joining the PGA Tour policy board on Aug. 1, Woods led a group of more than 40 players in signing a list of demands of Monahan. The move was made to reestablish control of the PGA Tour after players heard about Monahan's secretive meetings with the PIF.

Woods became the sixth player director on the policy board, giving players more say in any final decisions.

Monahan regrets agreement rollout

Speaking for the first time since taking a medical leave of absence one week after the deal was announced because of anxiety over the deal, Monahan took responsibility for the awkward rollout of the framework agreement, saying there was a lot of misinformation leading to distrust.

"That's on me," he said.

“My biggest regret was not being more patient on the night of June 5, moving to make this announcement the next day."

Norman confident about LIV's future

In October, Norman spoke publicly for the first time since the agreement. He was at LIV's final event of the season at Doral.

Norman was upbeat and confident his league was on the upswing and promised LIV was here to stay. As far as his future … when asked about Price's comment at July's Senate subcommittee hearing that Norman is "out of a job" if a deal is reached, Norman shrugged.

"I knew it wasn't true," he said. "There's so much white noise floating around out there that I actually paid zero attention to.

"Sitting in this seat today, I know every step I've made has been for the right reasons. Right reasons for the game of golf. … So I was never in any fear of anybody saying anything or any animus against me or anything like that. Because the business model works."

LIV releases most of 2024 schedule

Soon after the conclusion of the 2023 season, LIV made it official that it was moving forward without interruption. Despite the ongoing negotiations, it announced most of its 2024 schedule, which included seven domestic and seven international events.

The original schedule did not include sites for the final two events: the individual and team championships. Those later were announced as Chicago and Dallas, respectively.

Rahm proves he has a price

Six months after the framework agreement, Rahm announced on Fox News: "I have officially joined LIV Golf." He was wearing an LIV letterman's jacket.

The Spaniard and No. 3 golfer in the world clearly is LIV's biggest and most important addition since its launch, sending the message, "We are still here, we are not going anywhere." And for LIV, that was worth the reported $550 million Rahm will receive, including bonuses.

The man who once refuted all LIV rumors by saying $400 million would not change his lifestyle proved he had a price after all.

Woods stands firm on deadline

Despite reports negotiations were dragging and Dec. 31 would come and go without a deal, Woods remained optimistic, right to the end.

Speaking in December from the PNC Championship in Orlando where he teamed with his son, Charlie, Tiger insisted nothing has changed when it comes to the deadline.

"As of right now, that is our time frame and our deadline," he said. "That was set forth back in early June. And that hasn't changed."

Nothing drops on New Year's Eve

Like the ball in Times Square, the PGA Tour and PIF were hoping to drop an announcement that would put an end to golf's civil war.

The year came and went and the only announcement was that the sides were prepared to continue negotiating.

PGA Tour finds major investor in SSG

The long-awaited deal between the PGA Tour and Strategic Sports Group was announced in late January. The SSG, a collective of marquee professional sports franchise owners headed by Fenway Sports Group, is pumping $3 billion into the tour. That included an initial investment of $1.5 billion into the launch of a commercial venture, PGA Tour Enterprises.

That makes SSG the tour's major financial partner, which had some, like Woods, now hinting maybe the tour no longer needed PIF's money.

"The monies that they have come to the table with, and what we initially had agreed to in the framework agreement, those are all the same numbers," Woods said about the SSG investment.

Tyrrell Hatton follows Rahm to LIV

LIV's strong offseason continued with the long-awaited signing of England's Tyrrell Hatton . The 16th-ranked golfer in the world joined in February, just before LIV's first event of the year, in Mexico. Hatton joined Rahm's team, confirming LIV would be adding a 13th team.

Hatton's signing came after Germany's Adrian Meronk, No. 39 in the world, joined LIV.

Monahan offers little at Players

Monahan's much-anticipated state of the game address from The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach in March lacked substance. The commissioner offered very little, other than confirming he recently met with Al-Rumayyan and talks are "accelerating."

While McIlroy continued to believe in Monahan's leadership and a deal being finalized — that later eroded, as we will see — Xander Schauffele was not so sure. "I would say in my book he's got a long way to go to gain the trust of the membership," Schauffele said.

And world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler placed the blame for golf's fractured state squarely on those who joined LIV.

"If the fans are upset, then look at the guys that left," Scheffler said. "We had a tour, we were all together, and the people that left are no longer here. At the end of the day, that's where the splintering comes from."

More false hope after Bahamas meeting

Members of the PGA Tour Enterprises board, including Monahan and all six player directors — Woods, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Webb Simpson and Peter Malnati — met with Al-Rumayyan in the Bahamas soon after the Players Championship.

Monahan called the meeting "constructive." Woods said. "We're headed in the right direction."

LIV players: Deal needed to save sport

LIV golfers weighed in on the negotiations from the event at Doral with Bryson DeChambeau saying there needs to be more of a sense of urgency.

"The only answer is for us to somehow come together in some sort of terms where it makes sense and for us to be playing all again in somewhat of the same boat," DeChambeau said. "And it needs to happen fast. It's not a two-year thing. Like it needs to happen quicker rather than later just for the good of the sport. Too many people are losing interest."

LIV looking to buy golf courses

Norman revealed in May that LIV Golf has thought about owning all its golf courses with each team having a home venue on which to host an event.

"And now you can build out around that," Norman told Bloomberg News. "It’s not just a golf course. You bring in education, hospitality, real estate, merchandise, management, and all these other different opportunities that the game of golf has to deliver to a community or to a region. We are going to be doing that.”

Jimmy Dunne resigns from PGA Tour policy board

Dunne, one of the architects of the framework agreement, resigned from the tour’s policy board the week of the PGA Championship. The North Palm Beach resident and president of Seminole Golf Club said since helping negotiate the agreement, "no meaningful progress has been made towards a transaction with the PIF, I feel like my role is utterly superfluous."

Woods said the amount of work and dedication Dunne put into the board and into the PGA Tour has been "incredible."

McIlroy offered a grim outlook on the negotiations with Dunne no longer involved.

"I would say my confidence level on something getting done before last week was, you know, as low as it had been," McIlroy said. "And then with this news of Jimmy resigning and knowing the relationship he has with the other side, and how much warmth there is from the other side, it's concerning."

One year later and still no deal

A year has passed since that stunning announcement of a framework agreement and about six months since the deadline to turn that into a final deal.

And still, nothing.

But are we getting closer? According to The New York Times, possibly. Maybe?

More: Strong list of LIV, PGA Tour golfers attempting to qualify for U.S. Open at Bear's Club

The Times recently reported that negotiations between the PGA Tour and the PIF not only are very much alive but term sheets have been exchanged.

But it also added a deal is far from certain with the future of LIV Golf still to be decided.

And so we wait.

Tom D'Angelo is a senior sports columnist and golf writer for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Rory McIlroy Doesn't See LIV Golf 'Slowing Down' But Meetings Continue to Try to Unify

Bob harig | jun 6, 2024.

DUBLIN, Ohio — Rory McIlroy considered heading to New York following the second round of the Memorial Tournament on Friday but will instead take part via video conference in the first in-person meeting of the PGA Tour’s transaction committee and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.

Saying that players Tiger Woods, Adam Scott and himself will be more in the background because “this is big boy stuff,” McIlroy said it is about the PIF—which backs LIV Golf—and a possible investment in PGA Tour Enterprises and what that could mean for the future of the men’s professional game.

And as part of that, McIlroy believes that LIV Golf will continue to operate, regardless of how a deal might look.

“I certainly don’t see in the next couple of years LIV slowing down,” McIlroy told a small group of reporters following an opening-round 70 at Muirfield Village Golf Club. “They’re buying office space in New York. They have over 200 employees. I don’t see a world where—and I haven’t heard any of those guys say that they don’t want to play over there either, right? You’ve got guys who are on contracts until 2028, 2029.

“Looking a few years down the line, LIV is going to continue to sort of keep going down its path. But hopefully with maybe more of a collaboration or an understanding between the tours. Maybe there is some cross-pollenation there where players can start to play on both. I guess that will all be talked about in the coming weeks.”

McIlroy along with Woods and Scott were named last month to a “transaction committee” that is to deal directly with the PIF as part of a plan to get investment in the new PGA Enterprises and bring peace to the game.

The others on the committee are PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan; former Tour player and board liaison Joe Ogilvie; Joe Gorder, who is an executive with Valero Energy and the chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises; and John Henry, a principal with Fenway Sports Group and part of the Strategic Sports Group, which earlier this year invested $1.5 billion in PGA Tour Enterprises .

The group is meeting in New York on Friday afternoon with the PIF, including its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan.

McIlroy said the transaction committee has met a few times amongst themselves and every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with representatives of the PIF for the last few weeks.

It’s been a year since the “framework agreement” was announced, with no deal made and plenty of conjecture back and forth. The SSG commitment stalled talks with the PIF, but seemingly have resumed with plenty of ground to cover.

“There’s going to be people in that room on the PGA Tour side who are going to take the lead,” McIlroy said. “And it’s not going to be Adam, Tiger or I. That’s going to be Jay, Joe Gorder, Joe Ogilvie, John Henry. It’s going to be the business guys. We’re there to maybe give a perspective from a player’s point of view.

“This is a negotiation about an investment in the PGA Tour Enterprises, this is big boy stuff. And I’ll certainly be doing more listening than I will be doing talking.”

McIlroy said it is unknown at this point what PIF’s role might be going forward.

“I think depending on what the DOJ (the U.S. Department of Justice) allows, it might have to be a very passive investment,” McIlroy said. “I don’t know what’s in their head. I don’t know if that is something that they are willing to do. We’ll find out.”

McIlroy added: “There’s a lot of stuff that goes beyond my knowledge and expertise in terms of the investment side of things. And certainly the regulatory side of things as well. We’re on this transaction committee to sort of give a perspective from a player. But that’s going to be a conversation between SSG and the executives of the Tour.”

Asked if he believes the PIF—which was attempting to get into golf long before LIV Golf was launched—is looking at PGA Tour Enterprises as something aside from its LIV investment, McIlroy said:

“First and foremost, Yasir is the governor of the PIF and the chairman of Aramco (Saudi Arabia’s lucrative oil company). Those are the two titles that he holds. His biggest thing is making returns on his investments and to do good by the Kingdom. That’s his whole purpose in what he is doing. If he thinks that investing in PGA Tour Enterprises is a good investment and he can make return on his money and also get a seat at the table, as it were, he may see that as a win.”

McIlroy noted that collaboration going forward is tricky. The DOJ rejected original language in the framework agreement which said LIV Golf could not poach players from the PGA Tour. “It was anti-competitive; antitrust,” McIlroy said.

That, and so many other things, make for a complicated situation, he said.

“My stance on some of the LIV stuff has softened,” McIlroy said. “They’re contracted to play 14 events, but the other 38 weeks of the year you’re free to do what you want.

“The only thing is there are so many tours and so many golf tournaments.  There are only a certain amount of weeks in the year. That’s the complicated part. Trying to figure out which tournaments go where, when do we play them, how many players, what players.”

This is the first time that Al-Rumayyan is meeting with any of the players such as Woods and Scott since he joined them and the PGA Tour Policy Board meeting in the Bahamas in March .

Bob Harig is a golf writer for SI.com and the author of the book "DRIVE: The Lasting Legacy of Tiger Woods," which publishes in March and can be ordered here. 

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PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger explained: What to know about deal that shocked golf world

The golf world is still reeling from Tuesday's surprise announcement of the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and LIV Golf agreeing to merge their business operations.

The deal was a shock to many, considering the controversy surrounding the Saudi-backed LIV Golf and the PGA Tour's disapproval of it since the new league was formed. Not many of the key people involved in either league knew the deal was going to happen until it was announced.

Yet little is known about what the merger will mean for the future of golf, such as does this mean more lucrative purses for PGA Tour winners, will the PGA Tour shorten to 54-hole tournaments or if LIV players are all eligible for PGA Tour events.

Here's what we know about the PGA Tour-LIV Golf deal:

What does the PGA Tour-LIV Golf deal mean?

There is still uncertainty on deal's details, but there are off-the-course ramifications, including:

• The Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth investment fund of the Saudi government, "will make a capital investment into the new entity to facilitate its growth and success," according to a news release. The fund will also be the exclusive investor of the "new entity."
• Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Public Investment Fund, will be part of a newly formed board of directors.
• All outstanding litigation, including a lawsuit filed by a number of golfers who joined the LIV tour  filed against the PGA Tour , ends.

How did PGA Tour and LIV Golf reach a deal?

The two sides were in talks for the last seven weeks, the Associated Press reported , as PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan met with Al-Rumayyant. The meetings were arranged by PGA Tour board member Jimmy Dunne.

Monahan realized LIV Golf had a deep well of funds and wasn’t going anywhere. He says golf was too divided and had too much tension and it was best for everyone to come together.

"No one had word of this," Monahan said Tuesday. "Our players expect us to operate in the best interests of the tour."

Instead, he cited guidance from corporate members of the PGA Tour board.

Will LIV golfers be allowed back on the PGA Tour?

LIV Golf is currently in the middle of its season, which isn't scheduled to end until November. Once its season ends, the three leagues "will work cooperatively and in good faith to establish a fair and objective process" to allow players who left the PGA Tour and DP tour to re-apply for membership.

Will the PGA Tour change?

One of the main differences between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf is the latter plays 54-hole tournaments and has team play.

While the PGA Tour hasn't confirmed if any changes will be made to tournaments, it's unlikely; the Tour said it "retains administrative oversight of events for those assets contributed by the PGA Tour, including the sanctioning of events, the administration of the competition and rules."

Why is LIV Golf so controversial?

The LIV tour drew criticism because it is funded entirely by the PIF, the sovereign wealth investment fund of the Saudi government.

Saudi Arabia has been accused of wide-ranging human rights abuses, including politically motivated killings, torture, forced disappearances and inhumane treatment of prisoners. And members of the royal family and Saudi government were accused of involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi , a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist.

LIV Golf has been seen as the Saudi government taking part in "sportswashing" − or using sports to polish a country's otherwise problematic reputation. 

What have PGA Tour golfers said?

Some PGA Tour golfers have reacted negatively to the announced merger, ranging from them finding out about the news on Twitter , to others seeing it as the Tour going back on its word it wouldn't work with LIV.

Monahan held a players-only meeting at the Canadian Open Tuesday afternoon following the surprise announcement merger of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf that blindsided many players. Many top players were not present at the meeting, which Monahan described as "intense, certainly heated," according to the Associated Press.

Michael Kim  attended  the meeting and said he was "disappointed as all of you." He tweeted, "Well… the meeting happened… Came in very excited… but not a whole lot happened, too many details still up in the air."

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Contributing: Lorenzo Reyes and Tom Schad, USA TODAY; The Associated Press

Will the PGA Tour, PIF make a deal? A year later it’s still uncertain

It’s been one year since the shocking announcement of a framework agreement between the PGA Tour and PIF (the owners of LIV Golf), the monumental deal that ended litigation between the competing men’s pro golf tours and proposed a new business entity with the Saudis potentially investing billions into what has become PGA Tour Enterprises.

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It was far from an actual deal, though. It was, in actuality, an agreement to stop the lawsuits and simply negotiate in good faith.

In the past year, deadlines have been extended. The United States government held an inquiry into the potential union. Players have taken on power. Key figures on June 6, 2023 have either stepped down or seen their influence wane. A new investment group, led by American sport owners, emerged. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan went from the man with the most power to players calling for his resignation to firmly back in control. All while players like Tiger Woods, Patrick Cantlay and Jordan Spieth have taken on powerful roles. Still, few seem to know where any of this is heading.

So where are we a year on from the June 6 bombshell ? Let’s try to cut through the noise and explain where things stand.

The change in power

A “PGA Tour policy board” may mean nothing to you. It shouldn’t. But know the policy board decides almost everything for the PGA Tour. And there’s no better way to begin to detail the chaotic past year than the shuffling of seats on the board.

A year ago, investment banking legend Jimmy Dunne, popular with players for his willingness to connect them with the corporate world, was the key outside force on the board. Meanwhile, Rory McIlroy was balancing being one of golf’s biggest superstars and the most powerful among the five player-directors on the board. He was the PGA Tour’s most effective communicator, repeatedly denouncing LIV.

Well, when the June 6 announcement happened, it sent the golf world into a tizzy. For starters, it was all done in complete secrecy, so on a tour where the players are also essentially the owners, they had no say. Additionally, players who spent the past year turning down massive sums of money from the Saudis and defending the tour were livid that the tour just legitimized LIV and they still didn’t get the payday . Monahan and Dunne, the former secretly deputizing the latter to initiate talks with PIF, went from the leaders to the bad guys in many players’ eyes.

The players wanted more of a say. They wanted more voting power, insisting on an extra voting seat to be added specifically for Woods. They also campaigned to add former tour player turned investment banker Joe Ogilvie as “liaison director.” Suddenly the players were not just more engaged — they had voting power.

The narrative became that the Cantlay camp fought for more money for the biggest stars, while McIlroy’s side wanted the money spread throughout the tour, among other disagreements like any potential return for LIV players and a more global golf tour. Eventually, McIlroy resigned from the board. Spieth, who reportedly sides with Cantlay and Woods, took McIlroy’s spot.

Since then, McIlroy has dramatically softened his stance on LIV and campaigned for the sport to unify and bring the best players together. He’s even criticized comments from board members like Spieth and Cantlay publicly. So when board member Webb Simpson (aligned with McIlroy) asked to resign in April and have McIlroy take his place, the powers that be rejected that move. Whether it was vendetta or procedure, the impact was the same — McIlroy was instead added to the PGA Tour Enterprises transaction subcommittee that negotiates with LIV.

Within 12 days of McIlroy’s failed return, two more board members in favor of a deal with PIF resigned, Dunne and investment banker Mark Flaherty. Dunne cited players taking control of board voting and “no meaningful progress” toward a deal with PIF.

“I think things are, unfortunately, put in a really bad light right now,” Spieth said last month, “and I think things are actually in a really, really good place, based on what I know, which is quite a lot in this situation.”

LIV did not stop

When the June 6th announcement happened, it was argued the PGA Tour and Monahan had the power. PIF would invest billions into the newly created PGA Tour Enterprises and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan would be chairman and get a seat on the policy board, but Monahan would be CEO of the new venture and have control over LIV’s future. That was met with skepticism, as many argued the man with the money actually controls things, but it was sold as PIF just wanted a seat at the table in professional golf and everyone got what they wanted.

By the fall, there was little actual movement toward a deal and the PGA Tour had made it clear it was actually seeking other investment opportunities — more on that in a second. There was deserved doubt of anything happening by the original Dec. 31 deadline. So in late November, it was major news when rumors circulated about LIV negotiating with the reigning Masters champ, Jon Rahm . He was widely considered the first or second-best player in the world, and many wondered if LIV pursuing Rahm was to put pressure on the PGA Tour. Rahm admitted months later he thought signing, for hundreds of millions of dollars, would expedite negotiations and bring the sport back together.

No such thing has happened yet. No deal was done by Dec. 31, and both sides agreed to extend the deadline. LIV has continued to add executives in recent weeks with new hires from Pepsi and the Philadelphia 76ers while adding office spaces in New York and London.

PGA Tour added new investors

If Rahm was LIV’s key bargaining chip, the PGA Tour’s leverage was to add outside investment. On Jan. 31, the tour officially launched PGA Tour Enterprises backed by a $3 billion commitment from Strategic Sports Group , a consortium of major investors in professional sports like John Henry, Arthur Blank and Steve Cohen, among others. The deal made players actual owners in the sport, with $750 million in equity distributed to contributing players (past and present) based on value added to the tour.

The challenge of this investment was understanding if it signaled a move toward a deal or the tour ensuring it didn’t “need” the Saudis. Some argued it was the tour pushing PIF out. Others argued private equity investment expects a return and those investors would want a deal unifying the sport. SSG investors have not spoken publicly to provide transparency but Ogilvie told Golfweek that he believes SSG “committed with the hope that there would be another investor.”

Spieth was asked his thoughts on needing PIF the week before the announcement and said, “I don’t think it’s needed. The idea is that we have a strategic partner that allows the PGA Tour to go forward the way that it’s operating right now without anything else, with the option of other investors.”

A week later, SSG investors and PGA Tour representatives reportedly traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with Al-Rumayyan. In March, the parties (including players on the policy board) met again at Woods’ home in the Bahamas. Members involved said it was more of a pleasant, well-intentioned greeting and no major movement happened toward a deal.

What about Jay Monahan?

As recently as December, board members asked Monahan to resign from his place as PGA Tour commissioner. He completely lost the players’ trust after the June 6 announcement, and after Rahm left it appeared he was losing more and more control of the situation.

Then, with allies like Dunne and Flaherty leaving and the possibility of another board member Ed Herlihy departing when his term is up this fall, it was reasonable to wonder if Monahan was on his way out. McIlroy and Justin Thomas defended Monahan, while others like Xander Schauffele admitted Monahan has “a long way to go.” The tricky thing with Monahan is people have always said he’s great one-on-one and great with sponsors and investors. It’s just on the big stages and podiums that he appears so unconvincing.

So where does this leave a deal?

It’s never felt more unclear. The answer might really be that both sides are preparing for the possibility of no deal while simultaneously hoping to get one done.

From the outside looking in, it appears there’s been very little movement and many of the key figures in favor of a deal have been marginalized. Others argue that there’s far more happening than people know and it’s just going to take time to figure out what this future looks like.

There are hang-ups, like the possibility of a “global tour” and the future of LIV. Different possibilities from “AFC-NFC” style crossover tournaments to an elevated Champions League -like tour across the world have been suggested. Taking the sport to a more global place has been a key focus for LIV, and McIlroy is a fan of that path. Many on the PGA Tour side are reluctant to commit to that sort of schedule, preferring the United States-centric series. Also, there’s the conversation of whether or not to invite LIV defectors back to PGA Tour events, and some factions on tour are adamantly against it.

Any deal would also require government oversight. Sports Business Journal reported earlier this year that Department of Justice approval could take more than a year, making any sort of unification years away.

There’s far more that we don’t know than we do, with most key figures sticking to generalities and vague sentiments about hoping a deal gets done. We do not truly know what might happen with the DOJ. We don’t really know who wants a deal and who doesn’t. It’s all a game of sorting through clues and attempting to create meaning.

(Top photo of Jon Rahm, left, and Jay Monahan: Mark Brake, Sam Hodde / Getty Images)

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Brody Miller covers golf and the LSU Tigers for The Athletic. He came to The Athletic from the New Orleans Times-Picayune. A South Jersey native, Miller graduated from Indiana University before going on to stops at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Indianapolis Star, the Clarion Ledger and NOLA.com. Follow Brody on Twitter @ BrodyAMiller

Here's why the PGA Tour just merged with LIV Golf

The PGA Tour announced Tuesday it would merge with LIV Golf, a Saudi-backed men's golf organization that formed last year to compete with the PGA.

News of the merger sent shock waves through the sports world and even reached the highest echelons of the U.S. government, after a reporter sought comment from the Biden administration about the Saudi government's taking such a large stake in men's golf. Biden spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment.

Here's what it all means.

What is LIV Golf?

LIV was created in 2022 by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) alongside two of the world's most prominent players, Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman, and others.

Norman was appointed CEO, but it was Mickelson who helped LIV come into existence. Mickelson accused the PGA Tour of not fairly compensating players for things like highlight clips and other media rights , accusing the organization of "obnoxious greed."

Eventually, Mickelson helped persuade 48 players to abandon the PGA Tour for LIV.

The merger has shown that Saudi Arabia and its interests cannot be isolated, veteran U.S. diplomat Richard N. Haass said.

“It's not as big as the Biden visit or agreement with Iran , and it doesn't offset their recent failure to raise oil prices,” said Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations . "But it does send the signal they are a player who cannot be ignored."

Why did the PGA Tour initially bar players from participating in LIV?

The PGA Tour immediately viewed LIV Golf as a direct competitor — and many in the golf world agreed, often referring to it as a “breakaway league.”

So the Tour decided to force players to pick a side, creating harsh divisions in the golf world.

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan also seemed to disparage the presence of the Saudis in LIV, asking rhetorically in a June 2022 interview , “Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”

And in response to a lawsuit from players who'd joined LIV and said the PGA Tour had retaliated against them, lawyers for the organization condemned LIV as “a strategy by the Saudi government to use sports in an effort to improve its reputation for human rights abuses and other atrocities.”

So why is the PGA Tour merging with LIV?

The two leagues ended up suing each other — but acrimony and lawsuits ultimately proved bad business for the PGA Tour, which made the calculated decision to endure the blowback of turning 180 degrees in exchange for a unified effort with its former rival.

Lawsuits filed by suspended players and a federal probe into possible antitrust actions by the PGA Tour against LIV may also be moot in the wake of Tuesday's announcement.

"We've recognized that together we can have a far greater impact on this game than we can working apart," Monahan told CNBC, seated next to his LIV counterpart, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. "And I give Yasir great credit for coming to the table, coming to the discussions with an open heart and open mind."

Despite the vast financial resources at its disposal thanks to its Saudi backing, LIV had failed to secure major TV deals to broadcast its events, which were often instead relegated to livestreams on YouTube.

With its commercial viability in doubt, LIV officials may have decided it was better to cut their losses and approach the PGA Tour with an offering of peace — and money.

How much money is involved? What are the financial incentives on both sides?

Terms of the merger haven't been disclosed, but LIV Golf players were reportedly being promised eight- and nine-figure earnings to join the league, thanks to the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is worth about $676 billion.

CNBC's David Faber, who helped break Tuesday's news with an exclusive interview with Monahan and Al-Rumayyan, said the PIF plans to invest "billions" into the newly formed entity while it retains a minority stake.

How will major golf events be affected?

They won't.

The Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open (now known as The Open) and the PGA Championship (which, despite its name, isn't actually owned by the PGA Tour) are all separate entities from the PGA Tour.

Nor does the Tour control the biennial team-based Ryder Cup tournament — though heading into this year's event, there were questions about whether U.S. team captain Zach Johnson would forgo selecting LIV members.

Have there been mergers in professional sports before?

All four of North America's major professional team sports leagues have some kind of merger in their histories, most notably the NFL-AFL union that led to the Super Bowl.

The first World Series in 1903 , the 1976 NBA-ABA deal and the NHL's 1979 takeover of the upstart WHA , though, all pale in comparison to the geopolitical stage where the PGA Tour-LIV drama played out.

What are people in golf saying?

As expected, reaction to the stunning deal ran the gamut — from LIV backers' spiking the ball to 9/11 survivors' criticizing the PGA Tour for merging with the Saudi-backed LIV, which they likened to “terrorists,” with others resigned to money's simply ruling the day.

Former President Donald Trump typed in all caps on Truth Social, boasting that he predicted that the PGA Tour would have to come to terms with LIV.

A key Sept. 11 support group, 9/11 Families United, said it was "shocked and deeply offended" and claimed the merger is "bankrolled by billions in sportswashing money from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." It added: "Saudi operatives played a key role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and now it is bankrolling all of professional golf."

George Washington University sports marketing professor Lisa Delpy Neirotti verbally shrugged her shoulders and said the deal shouldn't have been a shock.

"I ask my students how to spell the word 'sports?' It's m-o-n-e-y," she said. "Fans have a short memory. They really want to see their stars. They want to see a better product."

Rob Wile is a breaking business news reporter for NBC News Digital.

David K. Li is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.

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What is LIV Golf? Players, field, tour schedule, news for league with Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson

Everything to know about the pga tour's newest rival.

LIV Golf is now more than halfway through its inaugural season after completion of play in Chicago. Making headlines both on and off the golf course, LIV Golf has taken its battle to the courtroom, social media and beyond. While the actual play in LIV Golf has been compelling at times, the overall structure, presence and future of the organization remains its most intriguing component in the context of men's professional golf.

Plenty of questions have been answered since its inaugural event in London from June 9-11, but still more remain without a response. What will the future of this rival tour look like? How will the team aspect of the competition clash with the individual side? Will LIV Golf be able to recruit some of the best players in the world with its Official World Golf Rankings status in the air? Is a court date with the PGA Tour inevitable?

At every step along the way, answers about this league have only produced more questions and clarification has only made the future more complicated. 

The breakdown below is our attempt to share with you everything that's known to this point as we head into the whatever LIV Golf is going to look like in the future. Whether this turns out to be a fork or bump in the road of professional golf remains to be seen (only the future will retroactively determine that), but it does feel monumental in the moment.

LIV Golf, empowered by its unlimited war chest of resources to throw at the best players, is officially at odds with the PGA Tour. It's a period of time that has been promised for a long time, and is finally taking place. Let's take a look at what we know and what we can expect in the weeks, months and years ahead as LIV Golf wraps up its first season at the end of October.

What is LIV Golf?

LIV Golf is a rival golf league to the PGA Tour where the tournaments consist of 54 holes, the fields are limited to 48 golfers and the purses are an astronomical $25 million. Twelve, four-man teams will compete in each event, and the individual purses will be $20 million while the other $5 million will be divided up among the best teams each week.

Who leads LIV Golf?

LIV Golf Investments runs the league, and its CEO is two-time major champion Greg Norman. It is funded by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, which is effectively the financial arm of the Saudi Arabian government. These funds are seemingly limitless as the league has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to players just to guarantee their appearances at the LIV Golf Invitational Series events.

Who is playing for LIV Golf?

It began with Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson headlining the London event and has since grown into a respectable roster. Major champions Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed quickly followed the lead of their fellow Americans. 

More recently, and more importantly, world No. 3 and Champion Golfer of the Year Cameron Smith made the leap after the completion of the 2022 Tour Championship. He was joined by young Chilean Joaquin Niemann as two international players who chose to forgo the Presidents Cup in lieu of playing in the LIV Golf event in Boston. While the initial demographics skewed towards older players like Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Mickelson, there has been an influx of younger talent with Abraham Ancer and Harold Varner III among others.

Here's a look at the 49 men who currently play for LIV Golf and their Official World Golf Rankings (Bubba Watson is a non-playing captain and is set to compete once fully recovered from injury).

What is going on legally between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour?

Originally, 11 LIV Golf players were a part of an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour. This suit also sought a temporary restraining order for Hudson Swafford, Matt Jones and Talor Gooch to participate in the 2021-22 FedEx Cup Playoffs -- which was ultimately denied and barred them from playing in the PGA Tour postseason.

Since then, slowly but surely, more and more of the original members have removed their names from the lawsuit. Previously, Ancer, Carlos Ortiz, Jason Kokrak and Pat Perez left the suit. More recently, Talor Gooch, Mickelson, Poulter and Swafford followed in their footsteps. 

This leaves only three players seeking punitive damages in a legal battle with the PGA Tour: Bryson DeChambeau, Peter Uihlein and Jones. The trial is set to begin in January 2024.

The Tour has over and over again pointed back to its rules and regulations in this matter and remains set on keeping those who have played on LIV Golf off the PGA Tour. Commissioner Jay Monahan was asked at the Tour Championship if there was any chance LIV Golf members would be welcomed back onto the PGA Tour to which he blatantly answered, "no."

How has the PGA Tour reacted to LIV Golf?

After a players-only meeting at the BMW Championship led by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, sweeping changes have been made to the PGA Tour schedule and the treatment of its star players. Here are the spark notes of this new-look PGA Tour starting this season.

• Top players will commit to at least 20 PGA Tour events:  These tournaments will include the eight elevated events as previously designated, four additional elevated events with purses of at least $20 million (to be announced), The Players Championship, the four major championships and three other FedEx Cup events of players' choosing.
• The PIP will be expanded:  The PIP has been increased from the top 10 players to the top 20 for 2022 and 2023. Not only has the player pool expanded, so has the prize pool, which will now total $100 million, double the $50 million previously announced. It is from these top 20 lists that "top players" will be defined.
• Modifications  made for Lifetime Membership:  No longer will 15 seasons of membership be necessary. Once a player reaches 20 wins, he will be eligible. With this change, McIlroy has secured his lifetime membership with Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth only being a handful of wins away.

Will LIV Golf receive Official World Golf Rankings points?

LIV Golf is still awaiting the status of its OWGR application despite its best attempts to expedite the process. All 49 players recently sent a letter to the OWGR chairman requesting that world ranking points be retroactively applied to its events. Comparing the OWGR without LIV to college football without the SEC or FIFA without Belgium, it is unlikely this holds any merit. 

Meanwhile, players have begun to tee it up on the DP World Tour with some consistency on weeks in which there is no LIV Golf event. The top 50 players in the OWGR at the end of the calendar year will be invited to the 2023 Masters making it a mad dash for players to accumulate as many points as possible before then.

Will the majors allow golfers to play?

That's an even better question that has at least some clarity.  The answer in the short term is: yes . The major organizations -- PGA of America, USGA, R&A and Augusta National -- likely won't announce suspensions or bans of players who participate. There is a potential that qualifying criterias are modified in the future, however as of now if a LIV player gains entry through previous exemptions or the adequate OWGR (points which LIV has yet to secure) he should be able to compete.

What is the LIV Golf schedule?

Five events have already taken place in 2022, with three remaining. Here's a look at what's left on the schedule for the inaugural season.

• Bangkok, Thailand: Oct. 7-9
• Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: Oct. 14-16
• Miami, Florida: Oct. 27-30

LIV Golf has released a tentative schedule for 2023 with 14 stops around the globe spanning Washington D.C., Spain and Australia.  This is unofficial as details have yet to be confirmed.

• February: Florida (course TBD)
• February: California (course TBD)
• March: Tucson (Dove Mountain or the Gallery)
• April: Australia (Sydney or Queensland)
• April: Singapore (Sentosa)
• May: Washington D.C. (CBS Sports can confirm Trump National DC the week after PGA Championship)
• June: Philadelphia (course TBD)
• July: London (Centurion)
• July: Spain (Valderrama the week before The Open)
• August: New Jersey (Trump National Bedminster)
• August: West Virginia (The Greenbrier)
• September: Chicago (course TBD)
• September: Toronto or Mexico (course TBD)
• September: Florida (Trump National Doral)

What does LIV Golf's season finale look like?

It will not look like the Tour Championship, that is for certain. Taking place from Oct. 28-30, the top four teams in LIV will receive a bye on the first day while teams 5-12 will compete in match-play competitions with the higher-ranked teams selecting their opponents. For each matchup, three matches consisting of two singles matches and one alternate-shot match will take place.

The same format will be used for Day 2 of competition with the four victors from Day 1 and the four teams which received a bye all playing. From there, the four winners from Day 2 will advance to the final stage which will be different.

The four winning teams will compete in stroke play on the final day of competition. All 16 players will compete and all four scores will count towards the team's score. The lowest team score will be crowned the LIV Golf Invitational Series Team Champion.

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Rory McIlroy says PGA Tour players who joined the LIV Golf Invitational Series took the 'easy way out'

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BROOKLINE, Mass. -- Rory McIlroy said he is disappointed that some PGA Tour players took the "easy way out" and joined the rival LIV Golf Invitational Series, and in how six-time major champion Phil Mickelson helped create the new circuit.

McIlroy, speaking at a news conference Tuesday ahead of this week's U.S. Open at The Country Club, said that he understands why aging players were tempted by millions of dollars in signing bonuses from LIV Golf but that he believes younger ones who left made a shortsighted decision by defecting.

"I understand. Yes, because a lot of these guys are in their late 40s," McIlroy said. "In Phil's case, early 50s. Yeah, I think everyone in this room would say to themselves that their best days are behind them. That's why I don't understand for the guys that are a similar age to me going because I would like to believe that my best days are still ahead of me, and I think theirs are, too. So that's where it feels like you're taking the easy way out."

While McIlroy, 33, said he didn't lose respect for Mickelson as a player, noting that he became golf's oldest major champion at age 50 at the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island, he didn't like how Mickelson handled his defection to LIV Golf.

"He won a major championship 13 months ago, probably one of the crowning achievements of his career and one of the most impressive achievements in the history of the game of golf," McIlroy said. "As a golfer, I have the utmost respect for Phil. I've been disappointed with how he went about what he has done, but I think he has come back and shown some remorse about how he has handled some things, so I think he has learned from that.

Mickelson is competing in the U.S. Open this week, his first start in the United States since missing the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open in late January. Mickelson and 16 other players who competed in LIV Golf's inaugural event in London last week have been suspended by the PGA Tour.

"Who am I to sit up here and give Phil a lesson on how to do things?" McIlroy said. "He has had a wonderful career. He is his own man. He is a great addition to the field this week. Am I disappointed he has taken the route that he has taken? I am, but I still respect him tremendously."

McIlroy seemed most disappointed that several players who had previously pledged their loyalty to the PGA Tour, including Dustin Johnson , Bryson DeChambeau and Pat Perez , changed their minds. At the Genesis in February, McIlroy said LIV Golf looked "dead in the water" after many of golf's top players said they weren't leaving the PGA Tour.

"I guess I took a lot of players' statements at face value," said McIlroy, a four-time major champion whose wins include the 2011 U.S. Open. "I guess that's what I got wrong. You had people committed to the PGA Tour, and that's what the statements that were put out. People went back on that, so I guess I took them for face value. I took them at their word, and I was wrong."

McIlroy said he understood why families and friends of victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, would be upset that Mickelson and other players are accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in signing bonuses from LIV Golf, which is being financed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.

Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.

"Yeah, of course I do," McIlroy said. "I think everything that's happening with this [LIV Golf] tour, it legitimatizes their place in the world, and I'm sure not every Saudi Arabian is a bad person. We're talking about this in such a generalized way. I've spent a lot of time in the Middle East, and the vast majority of people that I've met there are very, very nice people, but there's bad people everywhere. The bad people that came from that part of the world did some absolutely horrendous things."

While McIlroy said it was difficult to separate sports from politics and "dirty money from clean money" in today's world, he understands why the 9/11 survivors and families of victims are upset.

"It's a very convoluted world right now," McIlroy said. "I certainly empathize with those families, and I can't imagine. I have friends that have lost people in 9/11, and it's a really tragic thing. I empathize with those families, and I certainly understand their concerns and frustrations with it all."

McIlroy, who is longtime friends and former Ryder Cup teammates with Ian Poulter , Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell , who played in LIV Golf's inaugural event in London last week, stopped short of saying they were involved in sportswashing for the Saudis.

"I don't think they're complicit in it," McIlroy said. "Look, they all have the choice to play where they want to play, and they've made their decision. My dad said to me a long time ago, 'Once you make your bed, you lie in it,' and they've made their bed. That's their decision, and they have to live with that."

McIlroy, at least for now, doesn't seem willing to join them.

"Because in my opinion it's the right thing to do," McIlroy said. "The PGA Tour was created by people and tour players that came before us, the likes of Jack Nicklaus , Arnold Palmer . They created something and worked hard for something, and I hate to see all the players that came before us and all the hard work that they've put in just come out to be nothing."

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Who are the LIV Golf players competing at the PGA Championship?

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Dustin Johnson, who won the LIV event last week, has six career top-10 finishes in PGA Championships.

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The last time the PGA Championship was held, in May 2022 at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla., LIV Golf was still a start-up league gaining momentum (notably after it lost some ground in the aftermath of Phil Mickelson’s viral comments ).

One year later, LIV Golf is here, and its players are still allowed at major championships — just not on the PGA or DP world tours. In Tulsa, Dustin Johnson said he was “excited to see what happens here in a few weeks,” regarding the future of golf but stopped short of saying he was LIV-bound. A month later he was the top-ranked player in LIV Golf’s inaugural event in London.

A lot has happened between the 2022 and 2023 PGA Championships, and there’s still a lot of uncertainty in golf. One thing we do know is that four times a year, at least for now, we’ll see PGA Tour and LIV golfers tee it up together at majors.

Sixteen LIV players are in this week’s PGA Championship, which begins on Thursday at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y. That’s two less than we saw at the Masters , where LIV players had a strong showing at Augusta National. Three finished in the top six, which included Mickelson and Brooks Koepka, who tied for second.

Koepka was the 54-hole leader at the Masters but stumbled with a final-round 75, while Mickelson shot up the leaderboard with a Sunday 65.

Mickelson’s Masters was particularly notable, since he missed the 2022 edition when he decided to step away from the game after those aforementioned comments he made in February 2022.

Mickelson also missed the 2022 PGA a month later, where he would have been the defending champion following his 2021 victory at Kiawah Island. He headlines the field of 16 LIV players teeing it up this week. (Eighteen LIV players earned invites, but former PGA champ Martin Kaymer and Paul Casey both withdrew.)

Jon Rahm never criticizes LIV — here’s the interesting reason why

Mickelson and Koepka earned invites as former PGA winners, and Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed and Cameron Smith all earned spots as recent major winners.

The rest of the LIV players in the field got in through other qualifying criteria, such as by finishing in the top 15 at last year’s PGA or via their spot in the Official World Golf Ranking. Sihwan Kim earned his place via the International Federation Ranking list.

LIV Golf members at the PGA Championship

Abraham Ancer Dean Burmester Bryson DeChambeau Talor Gooch Dustin Johnson Sihwan Kim Brooks Koepka Anirban Lahiri Phil Mickelson Joaquin Niemann Mito Pereira Thomas Pieters Patrick Reed Cameron Smith Brendan Steele Harold Varner III

The caveat with LIV golfers in the PGA, and all majors, is that options for some to qualify will soon run out if the OWGR doesn’t grant LIV valuable World Ranking points. LIV applied for them last year, but the OWGR still hasn’t made a ruling, meaning LIV golfers needing to qualify for majors based on their World Ranking are losing precious spots until that gets decided.

This week’s event also comes on the heels of headlines made via comments from Seth Waugh , the CEO of the PGA of America, who recently said he doesn’t believe LIV Golf has a “survivable business model.” He was asked about those comments on Tuesday at Oak Hill.

“When asked about what do you think about the viability of it, I’m going to be honest in the same way that I was at Kiawah [two] years ago to say, I’m not sure that it’s a superior product and I’m not sure that it’s a sustainable business model because nothing has changed my mind about either of those things,” he said. “When asked, I’m giving an opinion about what it is. I’m just one opinion. I don’t have any authority here.

“As I said, we assembled the best field in golf. We’re happy to have them all here. I think we were fair and balanced about how we did all that, and let’s have a great week.”

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LIV Golf Invitational Series: Players, teams, results and all you need to know from inaugural season

Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace, Henrik Stenson and Dustin Johnson have won the first four LIV Golf events, while Johnson's 4 Aces side - also containing Patrick Reed, Pat Perez and Taylor Gooch - have topped the team competition three times already this season

Tuesday 13 September 2022 12:55, UK

The inaugural LIV Golf Invitational Series has reached its halfway point, with the fifth of the eight scheduled events set to take place at Rich Harvest Farms in Chicago this week.

The Saudi-backed circuit has caused controversy within the golfing world since its launch this year, with the PGA Tour suspending indefinitely players who elected to compete in LIV Golf events.

Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter were among the first wave of players to join the series, consisting of 54-hole events limited to a 48-man field, with Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Champion Golfer of the Year Cameron Smith all signing since.

• PGA Tour: 'Top players' commit to 'elevated' events
• PGA Tour, DP World Tour expand and strengthen 'strategic alliance'
• Keith Pelley defends DP World Tour over 'nonsense' feeder tour claims

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Eligible LIV Golf members can currently still compete on the DP World Tour, with Poulter one of 15 golfers to travel from the LIV Golf event in Boston to play at the BMW PGA Championship last week, with fines and sanctions for joining the breakaway tour temporarily lifted until a hearing next February.

There have been no additional signings for this week's LIV Golf event, with 46 of the 48-man field returning from the Boston tournament earlier this month and the two changes being golfers who have already competed on the tour this season.

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The field is set ✅ #LIVGolf #LIVGolfChicago pic.twitter.com/j8zq0y33Gw — LIV Golf (@LIVGolfInv) September 12, 2022

Henrik Stenson returns from injury to replace Shergo Al Kurdi in Majesticks GC, while David Puig comes in for Spain's Adrian Otaegui in the roster and joins Torque GC after turning professional this week.

The story so far

The series launched in June at Centurion Club near London, with South Africa's Charl Schwartzel winning the individual event as well as being part of Stinger GC who cruised to victory in the team contest. Schwartzel's double success saw the former Masters champion pick up a total of $4.75m in prize money, including $4m for the individual prize.

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Another South African, Branden Grace, prevailed in the second tournament at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Portland with 4 Aces GC, consisting of Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Talor Gooch and Pat Perez snaffling the team prize.

The big controversy ahead of the third tournament at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster was the decision of Henrik Stenson to switch to the Greg Norman-fronted tour, with the Swede being stripped of the Ryder Cup captaincy as a result.

Stenson's move paid instant dividends for him, though, as he earned a bumper $4m payday by winning the tournament by two strokes, with 4 Aces once again taking the team honours.

The series remained in the United States for the fourth tournament, with another six new names in the field, the most controversial of them being Open champion Cameron Smith, who had confirmed his long-rumoured switch after the Tour Championship.

Smith tied for fourth place at The International in Boston, finishing just one shot behind Johnson, and two fellow newcomers in Anirban Lahiri and Joaquin Niemann, with Johnson prevailing after the first play-off in the series. The American also added $750,000 to his $4m pay packet with another victory for 4 Aces in the team event.

The win elevated Johnson to the top of the individual standings with 94 points, ahead of Grace (77), Carlos Ortiz (48), Talor Gooch (48) and Matthew Wolff (47). The top three finishers at the end of the seven-event regular season will receive bonuses from the $30m purse, with the winner taking $18m and the runner-up earning $8m.

2022 event-by-event teams and results

Event One - June 9-11 - Centurion Golf Club, England

Individual winner - Charl Schwartzel (-7). Team winner - Stinger GC (-20)

4 Aces GC - Dustin Johnson, Shaun Norris, Oliver Bekker, Kevin Yuan

Cleeks GC - Martin Kaymer, Pablo Larrazabal, JC Ritchie, Ian Snyman

Crushers GC - Peter Uihlein, Richard Bland, Phachara Khongwatmai, Travis Smyth

Fireballs GC - Sergio Garcia, David Puig (AM), James Piot, Jediah Morgan

HY Flyers GC - Phil Mickelson, Justin Harding, Ratchanon 'TK' Chantananuwat (AM), Chase Koepka

Iron Heads GC - Kevin Na, Sadom Kaewkanjana, Hideto Tanihara, Viraj Madappa

Majesticks GC - Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Sam Horsfield, Laurie Canter

Niblicks GC - Graeme McDowell, Bernd Wiesberger, Turk Pettit, Oliver Fisher

Punch GC - Wade Ormsby, Matt Jones, Ryosuke Kinoshita, Blake Windred

Smash GC - Sihwan Kim, Scott Vincent, Jinichiro Kozuma, Itthipat Buranatanyarat

Stinger GC - Louis Oosthuizen, Hennie du Plessis, Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace

Torque GC - Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford, Adrian Otaegui, Andy Ogletree

Event Two - June 30-July 2 - Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club, Portland, USA

Individual winner - Branden Grace (-13). Team winner - 4 Aces GC (-23)

4 Aces GC - Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Talor Gooch, Pat Perez

Cleeks GC - Martin Kaymer, Scott Vincent, Ian Snyman, Turk Pettit

Crushers GC - Bryson DeChambeau, Shaun Norris, Justin Harding, Peter Uihlein

Fireballs GC - Sergio Garcia, Abraham Ancer, Carlos Ortiz, Eugenio Chacarra

HY Flyers GC - Phil Mickelson, Bernd Wiesberger, Matthew Wolff, Itthipat Buranatanyarat

Iron Heads GC - Kevin Na, Sadom Kaewkanjana, Phachara Khongwatmai, Sihwan Kim

Niblicks GC - Graeme McDowell, Hudson Swafford, Travis Smyth, James Piot

Punch GC - Wade Ormsby, Matt Jones, Jediah Morgan, Blake Windred

Smash GC - Brooks Koepka, Adrian Otaegui, Richard Bland, Chase Koepka

Stinger GC - Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace, Henni du Plessis

Torque GC - Hideto Tanihara, Ryosuke Kinoshita, Yuki Inamori, Jinichiro Kozuma

Event Three - July 29-31 - Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster, USA

Individual winner - Henrik Stenson (-11). Team winner - 4 Aces GC (-25)

Cleeks GC - Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell, Laurie Canter, David Puig (AM)

Crushers GC - Bryson DeChambeau, Paul Casey, Charles Howell III, Shaun Norris

HY Flyers GC - Phil Mickelson, Bernd Wiesberger, Matthew Wolff, Justin Harding

Iron Heads GC - Kevin Na, Sadom Kaewkanjana, Phachara Khongwatmai, Scott Vincent

Majesticks GC - Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Henrik Stenson, Sam Horsfield

Niblicks GC - Graeme McDowell, Hudson Swafford, James Piot, Turk Pettit

Punch GC - Wade Ormsby, Matt Jones, Travis Smyth, Jediah Morgan

Smash GC - Brooks Koepka, Jason Kokrak, Richard Bland, Chase Koepka

Event Four - September 2-4 - The Oaks Golf Course at The International, Boston, USA

Individual winner - Dustin Johnson (-15, play-off). Team winner - 4 Aces GC (-32)

Cleeks GC - Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell, Laurie Canter, Richard Bland

Crushers GC - Bryson DeChambeau, Paul Casey, Charles Howell III, Anirban Lahiri

HY Flyers GC - Phil Mickelson, Bernd Wiesberger, Matthew Wolff, Cameron Tringale

Majesticks GC - Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Sam Horsfield, Shergo Al Kurdi

Niblicks GC - Harold Varner III, Hudson Swafford, James Piot, Turk Pettit

Punch GC - Cameron Smith, Marc Leishman, Wade Ormsby, Matt Jones

Smash GC - Brooks Koepka, Jason Kokrak, Peter Uihlein, Chase Koepka

Stinger GC - Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace, Shaun Norris

Torque GC - Joaquin Niemann, Scott Vincent, Adrian Otaegui, Jediah Morgan

Event Five - September 16-18 - Rich Harvest Farms Golf, Chicago, USA

Torque GC - Joaquin Niemann, Scott Vincent, David Puig, Jediah Morgan

What are the future plans?

Stonehill Golf Club in Bangkok will be the venue from October 7-9 and Royal Greens Golf Club - the site of the Saudi International in recent years - hosts the following week, with the season-ending Team Championship at Trump National Doral Miami from October 27-30.

The format changes in the Team Championship, which is a seeded four-day, four-round, match play knockout tournament. The top four seeds automatically receive a bye through the first round, with the remaining eight teams playing against each other to see who reaches the quarter-finals.

LIV Golf has announced that the LIV Golf League will officially launch in 2023 with 48 players and 12 established team franchises competing in a 14-tournament schedule.

The full slate of events will be announced at a later date and is expected to expand LIV Golf's global footprint across North and Latin Americas, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Europe.

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Rory McIlroy moves into contention at Muirfield ahead of crunch PGA Tour and Saudi talks

First sit-down between rival tours finally takes place on Friday but Northern Irishman believes they will live in harmony rather than merge

Rory McIlroy survived the arduous layout that is Muirfield Village here before rushing off for the long-awaited meeting between the PGA Tour and Saudi Public Investment Fund which could one day be seen as the defining moment in the professional male game’s civil war.

‌Rather like the Memorial tournament in windy conditions, the crunch talks were set to evolve around self-preservation.

‌The first sit-down between the respective parties was due to take place in New York later on Friday, with McIlroy linking in via a video call after he had carded a commendable 71 to move to three-under and into contention, with the US Open just one week away.

‌Tiger Woods and Adam Scott were scheduled to attend in person, as was PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, Saudi Public Investment Fund governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan and John Henry, the Liverpool FC owner who is in charge of a consortium which has already invested more than £1 billion of private equity into Tour’s new for-profit entity .

‌A year and a day after the announcement of the “framework agreement” with the Tour and PIF – the bankrollers of LIV – that shocked the game, they were finally to be in a room together, albeit minus the DP World Tour, which is having to rely on Monahan to protect Wentworth’s interests.

‌Despite the reports of “player power” on the Tour policy board, McIlroy claims that he, Woods and Scott were to be largely looking on - because “this is big boy stuff”.

‌“There’s going to be people in that room on the PGA Tour side who are going to take the lead,” McIlroy said. “And it’s not going to be Adam, Tiger or me. That’s going to be Jay, Joe Gorder [chairman of PGA Tour enterprises], Joe Ogilvie [the former Tour pro and now player liaison] and John Henry. It’s going to be the business guys.

‌“We’re there to maybe give a perspective from a player’s point of view. This is a negotiation about an investment in the PGA Tour Enterprises, this is big boy stuff. And I’ll certainly be doing more listening than I will be doing talking.”

‌Nevertheless, the policy board, on which the elected players have the voting majority, will ultimately have the deciding say if a deal is accepted. McIlroy, who initially thought that LIV would be subsumed in the new order, now believes that the Tour will have to live in harmony if there is to be peace.

‌“I certainly don’t see in the next couple of years LIV slowing down,” McIlroy said. “They’re buying office space in New York. They have over 200 employees. I don’t see a world where – and I haven’t heard any of those guys say – that they don’t want to play over there either, right? You’ve got guys who are on contracts until 2028, 2029.

‌“Looking a few years down the line, LIV is going to continue to sort of keep going down its path. But hopefully with maybe more of a collaboration or an understanding between the tours. Maybe there is some cross-pollination there where players can start to play on both. I guess that will all be talked about in the coming weeks.”

‌Such is the importance of this summit that McIlroy actually considered flying to New York straight after this round featuring three birdies and three bogeys. But he thought better of it, perhaps because it was set to be a long night.

‌The scenario is obviously complex – the US Department of Justice would still have to give its approval and Mcilroy talked about PIF perhaps having a “passive investment” – but he is hoping for a solution.

‌“My stance on some of the LIV stuff has softened,” McIlroy said. “They’re contracted to play 14 events, but the other 38 weeks of the year you’re free to do what you want. The only thing is there are so many tours and so many golf tournaments. There are only a certain amount of weeks in the year. That’s the complicated part. Trying to figure out which tournaments go where, when do we play them, how many players, what players?”

‌The summit was well-timed as not only were nine of the world’s top 10 players here in the $20 million (£15.7 million) Memorial field, but LIV were staging a $25 million (£19.6 million) event in Houston. There are 12 rebels qualified for the US Open at Pinehurst, but Patrick Reed is not one of them, with the American’s run of 41 consecutive major appearances coming to an end. Reed blames the world ranking system in which he has fallen to 100th

‌“I feel like the world ranking is not a reflection of where I should be and what events I should be in,” he said. Reed has competed in 11 non- LIV events since the start of 2023 and has racked up four top-10s and seven top-25 finishes, including a fourth at last year’s Masters. “If those events would carry over into a normal season, there’s no doubt I’d be in the majors,” he said. “I’ll be well inside the top 20, probably top 15 in the world.”

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How many PGA Tour players have joined LIV Golf ahead of Portland?

A significant number of PGA Tour players have now defected to the LIV Golf Invitational Series and we expect to hear of more recruits in the coming days.

The PGA Tour has had to deal with a number of its members joining the LIV Golf Invitational Series in 2022 and they will continue to deal with further departures.

Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Louis Oosthuizen were among the biggest names from the circuit to play in the inaugural LIV Golf event at Centurion Golf Club near London.

About half an hour after the first tee shots were hit in the first shotgun start on June 9, tour commissioner Jay Monahan suspended 17 players from competing on the PGA Tour and they were removed from the FedEx Cup standings.

Sergio Garcia, Talor Gooch, Branden Grace, Dustin Johnson, Matt Jones, Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell, Phil Mickelson, Kevin Na, Andy Ogletree, Louis Oosthuizen, Turk Pettit, Ian Poulter, Charl Schwartzel, Hudson Swafford, Peter Uihlein and Lee Westwood were all suspended.

A number of these players have resigned their membership on the tour to avoid a legal dispute, however, legal proceedings are certainly expected to happen somewhere down the line.

Related: Brooks Koepka withdraws from Travelers Championship after LIV Golf move

After he discovered he was suspended after the first round at Centurion, Ian Poulter said he would appeal the suspension and if necessary, carry out a legal battle.

During the tournament, Bryson DeChambeau was confirmed as the latest high-profile name to succumb to the millions being offered by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. The former US Open champion described it as a "business decision."

2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed was also announced and Pat Perez' wife let the cat out of the bag on Instagram, confirming her husband's participation.

One-time PGA Tour winner Abraham Ancer publicly revealed he'd committed to LIV Golf on Tuesday and now four-time major champion Brooks Koepka is heavily assumed to join Greg Norman's roster too.

By my count, this means 22 PGA Tour players have ignored their release rejections and chosen the breakaway eight-event series. Bubba Watson, Matthew Wolff and Rickie Fowler could be next to take the total to 25.

This list also doesn't include the many players from the DP World Tour who have chosen the Saudi-backed series. Sam Horsfield, Laurie Canter, Pablo Larrazabal, Adrian Otaegui and Oliver Bekker are all yet to be punished by the old European Tour.

The next event on the LIV Golf Invitational Series will begin on June 30 at Pumpkin Ridge in Portland.

Next Page: Justin Thomas shows concern at Collin Morikawa's tweet on LIV Golf

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Latest Reviews

The PGA Tour is calling this a victory, but something doesn’t smell right

What’s the going rate to turn an American executive into a boot boy for a despotic torturer such as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman? Just how worn out are the knees of PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan’s pants legs?

But let’s start with this simple question first: Why would the PGA Tour join forces with a vermin-populated fourth-rate start-up such as LIV Golf, a comedic failure that can’t command any ratings, headed by that king of the white mice, Greg Norman?

Bought. That’s the only word for Monahan and his henchies on the PGA Tour policy board, who have made an otherwise inexplicable — and still vague — deal to work with LIV and the European tour to form a new global enterprise , funded by the Saudis. They were bought. The only question is for how many bills.

PGA Tour agrees to partner with Saudi-backed LIV Golf, ending bitter feud

The PGA Tour had all the leverage. Sure, Brooks Koepka’s victory at the PGA Championship was a good storyline, but it wasn’t especially wounding to the PGA Tour. If anything, it made you wonder how long Koepka would be content to play customer golf in the bush league, now that he had his form back. Koepka’s star quality took an undeniable hit from his association with LIV, not to mention the Netflix documentary “Full Swing,” which revealed him as a manifestly shallow ding-dong. It will take a few more major victories to erase the quivering faintheartedness he showed during his career downturn, when he feared he couldn’t win on the PGA Tour anymore.

Let’s face it. Koepka and his fellow LIVers dived for the Saudi blood money like that guy pushing women and children aside to get in a lifeboat in “Titanic.” It was going to be pretty funny watching them try to get back on the deck of the big ship.

Here was Monahan last year, talking to Jim Nantz on CBS about accepting Saudi sports-washing money. After unctuously invoking the pain of 9/11 families, he said, “I would ask any player that has left or any player that would consider leaving, ‘Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?’ ”

So what other sour ingredients are baked into this strange cake, along with total secrecy, inside dealing and what appears to be a rampant conflict of interest? Somehow, Monahan and Edward Herlihy, the chair of the PGA Tour policy board, wound up hand in hand with his excellency Yasir Al-Rumayyan as the leaders of this new for-profit global golf organization funded by a fresh infusion of Saudi “capital.” This organization is so committed to unifying the game that no actual golfers knew about the deal until it hit social media .

The PGA Tour-LIV deal stunned pro golfers — and upset more than a few

Somewhere along this very muddy line, the PGA Tour found itself advised by the New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Which is interesting, because who is a partner and co-chair of that firm? Herlihy. And what sort of work does the firm mainly do? Multibillion-dollar mergers and acquisitions. It’s also known for its uniquely profitable billing system: It doesn’t hit clients with just billable hours but also large flat fees and sometimes percentages of deals .

And what did Herlihy’s firm evidently advise the PGA Tour to do? Merge.

And who was one of the firm’s three lawyers representing the PGA Tour in this deal while also sitting as chair of its policy board? Herlihy.

Herlihy was “key to the development and implementation of this agreement,” according to a PGA Tour spokesperson.

Exactly what cut or fee do Herlihy and his firm stand to make from this deal? After being told Herlihy would call me Tuesday, I’m still waiting for my chance to ask him.

So what will his compensation be for sitting on the very small “executive committee” of the new board of directors of this new for-profit global golf entity, alongside Rumayyan and Monahan? Unknown.

When will that be fully disclosed to the PGA Tour players, who have been sold down this river of blood? Who knows?

Here’s what we know — and don’t know — about the PGA Tour-LIV Golf partnership

Maybe it’s all pure as a Nativity scene. But here’s a simple question: Whom does this deal serve better, Herlihy or Rory McIlroy? Monahan or Scottie Scheffler? Or Jordan Spieth, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Tiger Woods or any of the other superb professionals who stayed loyal to each other and the PGA Tour, who refused to knife competitors in the financial back and break commitments and who managed not to sell themselves like degenerate pieces of human scruff to the Saudis? If I were them, I’d be hot. And I would have some other very simple questions.

Who made the first overture? On what authority? Who recommended accepting a deal? On what basis? How do loyal Tour players benefit, as opposed to suffering reputational harm? Why were they not informed? What is the approval process? What are their rights?

Mainly, how on earth are self-respecting PGA Tour golfers supposed to choke down this corporate sellout gluttony and pretend that any of it was really for them?