The two-and-a-half-year battle for professional golf supremacy between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf has been the game’s biggest story since Tiger Woods stormed onto the scene nearly 30 years ago.
Backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the circuit threw its money around and disrupted the sport, forming a chasm that divided players and fans alike.
The turbulent time has been featured in a new book from Alan Shipnuck, titled “LIV and Let Die: The Inside Story of the War Between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.” A 3,000-word excerpt from the book, set to be released on Oct. 17, 2023, was posted on the Fire Pit Collective on Wednesday and details everything from the first letter sent by then-Golf Saudi CEO Majed Al-Sorour to the framework agreement that’s still yet to be passed.
Here’s what we learned from the excerpt (you can pre-order the book here).
The first letter
The excerpt claims that former Golf Saudi CEO Majed Al-Sorour twice tried to extend an olive branch to the PGA Tour. First, in March 2021, Al-Sorour had a meeting with Jack Nicklaus at the Bear’s Club, where he asked the 18-time major champion to reach out to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan to discuss how “they might work together going forward,” according to a lawsuit.
“Mr. Nicklaus reached out to Mr. Monahan later that week,” the excerpt read, “and was told that the PGA Tour had no interest in collaborating with Golf Saudi.”
A month later Al-Sorour wrote a letter to Monahan, which read in part:
“I am writing in my capacity as lead advisor of a new golf enterprise. I want to introduce you to our proposition and outline its value as a prospective partner of the PGA Tour. We are proposing an innovative league featuring twelve “teams” of top talent competing head-to-head over 14 weeks, creating a new dimension for sports and stakeholders.”
Al-Sorour claimed to have “a very interested individual and group” and the new venture would “launch in 2022,” with or without the PGA Tour. More from the letter:
“I have respect for the PGA Tour and we view this as an opportunity for a collaboration that would grow the game. We’d like to arrange a sit-down with you to discuss our approach in more detail and highlight how this could represent value for you, your members, partners and community.”
Monahan, who never responded to the letter and never showed it to the Tour’s board of directors, called the letter “strange” given it had come on a blank sheet of paper and was postmarked from Oregon (the Tour later discovered Al-Sorour had what Shipnuck called “a paramour” in the Pacific Northwest). The excerpt makes the point that the letter was just unofficial enough that it gave Monahan the ability to “blow it off” and that, as commissioner, “he was not duty-bound to chase after a shadowy would-be competitor offering a nebulous deal.”
'We are at war'
At a board meeting in the fall of 2021, Player director Charley Hoffman asked why a discussion had yet to take place with the Saudis.
“We are at war,” Monahan replied. “We do not negotiate with another entity that is trying to put us out of business. We do not negotiate with people who are trying to ruin the golf ecosystem.”
“All of the other Tour people are on Jay’s side, obviously,” said James Hahn, one of the four player directors on the PGA Tour Policy Board throughout 2021. “As a player, you feel outnumbered. When Jay said we wouldn’t negotiate with the Saudis, as a player, that was it. End of discussion. It felt like a dad yelling at his son: ‘This is how it is because I said so, and we’re done talking about it.’ There was no pushback, no follow-up questions. Every meeting we had from then on was about how do we combat this threat to our business? ‘We’re at war here, fellas. These guys are trying to take over our business.’ That’s all we heard: ‘We are at war, we are at war, we are at war.’”
Dead in the water to galvanized
Fallout from Phil Mickelson’s “scary (expletive)” comment in Shipnuck’s biography that was made public in Feb. 2022 led players like Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau to briefly back the PGA Tour, despite the fact that both players were “deep in discussions” with LIV executives.
“We first heard about it on Twitter,” said one LIV executive. “It was complete and total panic and chaos. We went from the verge of launching to feeling like, ‘Hey, it was a good run, but now it’s over.’”
In response, Al-Rumayyan organized a group call. From the excerpt:
“I believe in all of you, I believe in what we are building, and we are going to press forward,” Al-Rumayyan said with some steel in his voice. “We will do what we have to do to launch this. Just get me 16 players.” His resolute tone galvanized the operation. “We all went into the call with our heads hanging low, feeling so defeated,” says the LIV exec. “Then it became like in The Wolf of Wall Street when Leonardo DiCaprio gives that speech and the whole room goes crazy. When (Al-Rumayyan) finished speaking we were all high-fiving. It was like, Let’s (expletive) go! We’re gonna (expletive) do this!”
Did Tiger Woods keep Phil Mickelson out of a champions dinner?
Mickelson was snubbed from a private dinner for Open Championship winners at the 150th Open at St. Andrews, and the excerpt claims it was orchestrated by Tiger Woods.
“He talked to a handful of other (past champions) to get their blessing and then went to the R&A and told them, basically, no one wanted Phil there and it would make the night weird and awkward,” said one of the men at the dinner. “Whose side were they going to take, Tiger’s or Phil’s? That’s an easy choice.”
Tiger's role on the board and the framework agreement
The early pieces of the framework agreement began to fall into place in Nov. 2022 when the PGA Tour added Jimmy Dunne to its board of directors. A few months later in April 2023, Dunne reached out to Al-Rumayyan and a week later they met in London along with Ed Herlihy, a fellow Tour board member. Both were impressed with Al-Rumayyan and returned to tell Monahan it was time to make a deal.
The framework agreement was announced on June 6, 2023, sending shockwaves through the golf world. The lack of transparency with the release led 41 players a month later in July to send a “sternly worded letter to Monahan demanding more transparency and oversight in the ongoing negotiations with the PIF.” The next day Monahan created a sixth seat for the players on the Tour policy board, which went to Tiger Woods.
From the excerpt:
Woods has always preferred to exert soft power; it is a significant development that he has now put himself on the firing lines. Says a member of the Tour’s Player Advisory Council, “No offense to [board members] Peter Malnati or Webb Simpson, but we need Tiger in the room. We need his presence. He’s not going to take any shit from Jay or Jimmy Dunne, because he doesn’t have to. What you’re seeing with Cantlay, with Tiger, is the players trying to take back control of the Tour.” With a rueful laugh, he added, “Before it’s too late.”
