Sources – PGA Tour rejects the recent Pif offer to invest $ 1.5 billion

The PGA Tour wants a leading circuit operating in professional male golf.

The public investment fund of Saudi Arabia wants two – and that is why the talks of the parties to bring together the sport seem to be back to square one.

Sources have confirmed to ESPN that the PGA Tour has rejected the most recent offer of the PIF to invest $ 1.5 billion in PGA Tour Enterprises, the for -profit entity of the tour, which came with the warning that the Rivale Liv Golf League would remain intact.

The PIF, which has funded Liv Golf since its creation in 2022, also wants its governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan, to be co-president of the PGA Tour Enterprises’ Board. The former CEO of Valero Energy, Joe Gorder, is president of the PGA Tour Enterprises Board, and Tiger Woods is vice-president.

The Guardian of London reported that the PGA Tour responded to the Pif on Monday in a letter.

Sources previously declared to ESPN that the Liv Golf League which continued in its current form was a non-start for the PGA Tour, which prefers to have the best golfers in the world in competition on a single circuit.

Sources have said that the PIF had dug in its heels in the negotiations and wanted Team Golf to be part of the future ecosystem of sport if the parties are reaching an agreement. The PGA Tour has tried to offer solutions to PIF which would include a kind of iteration of LIV golf in future hours, such as having team competitions in international sites in the fall.

“We will not do it in a way that decreases the strength of our very real platform or momentum that we have with our fans and our partners,” said PGA Tour curator Jay Monahan, at the players’ championship of last month. “So, even if we have removed obstacles, others remain. But like our fans, we always share the same sense of urgency to achieve a resolution.”

The last correspondence comes on the four-hour games of the games at the White House on February 20, which included Al-Rumayyan, Monahan, Woods and PGA Tour Player, Adam Scott. US President Donald Trump had already met Monahan and Scott in Washington on February 4.

Trump told journalists on Air Force One Thursday that he hoped that competing tours could conclude an agreement. Trump flew to Miami to meet Liv Golf officials in Trump National Doral, whom he owns.

“In the end, I hope that the two tours will merge. It will be good. I am also involved there,” Trump told journalists on the flight in Miami, according to the Associated Press. “But I hope we are going to merge the two tours. You have the PGA Tour and the Liv Tour. And I think it would merge would be a good thing.”

Published reports have indicated that the PIF will have injected $ 5 billion into Liv Golf by the end of this year. The circuit that celebrates the tournaments of 54 holes, no cuts, the hunting rifle starts and the team golf course had trouble winning in the United States in terms of corporate sponsors and television ratings.

Before the Liv Golf League tournament of this week at the Trump National Doral in Miami, the captain of the Liv golf league, Brooks Koepka, said that he had hoped that the rupture circuit would be more advanced during his fourth season.

Koepka was one of the many stars of the PGA Tour was attracted to the LIV golf with guaranteed contracts worth more than $ 100 million. The former major champions Bryson Dechambeau, Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith are among the others who left the PGA Tour and were suspended by Monahan.

The financial files submitted by the Société based in the United Kingdom of Liv Golf, which operates its tournaments outside the United States, said that it had nearly $ 400 million operating losses in 2023. The financial registers of events in the United States were not available.

New Liv Golf CEO Scott O’Neil told journalists on Tuesday that his league did not have to conclude an agreement with the PGA Tour to survive.

“If the agreement can help develop the golf game, I will jump with two feet,” said O’Neil. “Should we make an agreement? No. It would be good to conclude a case, as long as we all focus on the same things.

“So, must we make an agreement or need a business, whatever the word you use, leave that to someone smarter than me. I will say that I like what we do, I like our prospects. I love growth in three months. I know what happens in the next three months. And I like where we are.”

O’Neil is not involved in PIF negotiations with the PGA Tour.

“The reality of the way I see the world is that I see the Liv Golf League with great hope and a lot of the future,” O’Neil told Espn. “I hope we will find a way to get more opportunities to have the best players in the world to play together. It may not be in a beautiful neat arc, or it could be.” We will see. “

The PGA Tour and the PIF continued before the Federal Court, but the prosecution was deleted when they signed a framework agreement on June 6, 2023 to form an alliance that would bring together sport. This agreement expired at the end of 2023, but the parties continued to try to conclude an agreement in the past two years.

In January 2024, the PGA Tour and Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of American sports teams and others, concluded an agreement for SSG to invest up to $ 1.5 billion in PGA Tour companies.