1 of 2 | Will Zalatoris plays the 10th hole in the final round during the PGA Championship at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., in 2022. The standoff between the PGA Tour and rival LIV Golf League continues after the PGA sunk an investment offer from Saudi Arabia. File Photo by Kyle Rivas/UPI | License Photo
April 4 (UPI) — The standoff between the PGA Tour and rival LIV Golf League continues after the PGA sunk an investment offer from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, or PIF, offered the PGA Tour an investment of $1.5 billion into the for-profit PGA Tour Enterprises on Thursday, but the PGA would only go for that if LIV would go away. Advertisement
The PIF’s offer, on the other hand, stipulated that LIV would live on and remain in action, and now a unification of the two sides is not likely to happen anytime soon as the PGA wants the world’s top golfers solely signed to a single circuit.
Another stumbling block is that the PIF wants its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, to serve as co-chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises’ board, along with current chairperson Joe Gorder, who serves above vice chairperson and golf icon Tiger Woods.
PIF will reportedly have spent $5 billion on LIV Golf by the end of 2025, but despite the investment the league has had a hard time catching on in the United States in terms of TV ratings and corporate sponsorships.
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Financial documents filed by LIV Golf’s U.K.-based company, which operates its tournaments outside the U.S., indicate it had nearly $400 million in operating losses in 2023, while similar records for its events in the U.S. weren’t available.
The PIF also wants team golf to be a part of world class golf in some fashion, to which the PGA reportedly would be OK with as some version of LIV Golf down the road, such as at international venues come autumn, but,