After two years of public and private battles, the PGA Tour has agreed to merge with its supposed rival: the LIV Golf Tour.
CNBC reported that the agreement would be to combine the two tour’s commercial businesses into a single, for-profit company. The European PGA Tour, or the DP World Tour, is also included in the merger.
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Saudi PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan will be the chairman of the new merged entity, while PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan will be its CEO, according to Sean Zak of Golf Magazine.
“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan said.
The PGA Tour has resisted working with the Saudi-backed LIV Tour which teed off for the first time in June 2022. The LIV Tour -- which is backed by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund headed by the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud -- has poached stars such as Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson from the PGA Tour with signing bonuses worth over $100 million.
Mickelson, who had become the face of the LIV Tour’s battle with the PGA Tour early on, already put out a tweet to show his happiness.
On the other side, young PGA star Collin Morikawa also voiced his shock over the matter. Morikawa had actively voiced that he was not interested to join any tour outside of the PGA.
While the details are still unclear, it seems obvious that the LIV players who took massive paychecks but lost their PGA cards are going to return to the now merged Tour. Those like Morikawa who chose to stay on the PGA Tour won't recoup the monetary benefits of their counterparts -- and now won't even have the argument of taking a moral high ground as their merged league will also be backed by the Saudi government.
The merger announcement comes just weeks after Brooks Koepka became the first player from the LIV Tour to win a major tournament, winning his third PGA Championship on May 21.
It also comes just over a week away from the The U.S. Open which will be from June 15-18, 2023 at the Los Angeles Country Club.
This is a breaking story. More details will follow.
