For a time just last month, professional golf seemed to be on the brink of a historic reconciliation. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and Tiger Woods conveyed unmistakable optimism at Torrey Pines in mid-February, generating conviction throughout the golf world that an upcoming White House summit—bringing together Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and President Donald Trump—would deliver the long-awaited formal announcement. Yet two weeks after that high-stakes meeting, with the sport poised to converge on PGA Tour headquarters for the tour’s flagship event, any semblance of an agreement appears to have evaporated.
"It doesn't feel any closer," Rory McIlroy said Wednesday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
What derailed these seemingly promising negotiations, and what machinations continue behind closed doors?
"Ego, misunderstanding, selfishness,” says one tour source familiar with the negotiations. “It’s a stupid game of chicken.”
Pervasive uncertainty has become the defining characteristic of golf's cold war between the tour and the PIF-funded LIV Golf League, now dragging into its fourth grueling season. Throughout this conflict, two realities have remained constant—the game's principal figures seemingly prioritizing personal interests over the sport's collective welfare, and the absolute dearth of verifiable information available to anyone. Yet what renders the current situation particularly bewildering is the dramatic reversal; after all signs pointed to a finalized agreement, both factions have retreated to their respective corners, meticulously crafting their next strategic maneuvers while simultaneously attempting to decode their adversary's intentions.
This remains undeniable: Negotiations have hit a significant impasse. Monahan's public silence since the Framework Agreement of June 6, 2023, made his forthright and assured media address last month at Torrey Pines particularly striking—his confidence about reunifying professional golf under a single tour seemed to signal breakthrough developments. Woods, renowned for his strategic reticence, reinforced this narrative during CBS' Genesis Invitational broadcast, suggesting a deal's imminent conclusion. The transformation between these pronouncements, the White House meeting, and the present standstill centers on the PGA Tour's dramatically evolved position regarding LIV Golf's future role, if any.
President Donald Trump is joined by Tiger Woods in the East Room of the White House on February 20, 2025.
Win McNamee
Prior to the 2024 presidential election, consensus held that LIV would endure in a post-agreement landscape, albeit reconfigured from its current iteration, with team elements preserved. This structure was deemed necessary to satisfy antitrust regulations, as a legitimate competitor to the PGA Tour needed to exist. However, Trump's electoral victory in November fundamentally altered this thinking, with tour leadership now operating under the presumption that Trump's Department of Justice would expedite approval for any arrangement—effectively questioning LIV's very necessity. Meanwhile, Yasir Al-Rumayyan views LIV Golf not merely as a business venture but as the PIF governor’s brainchild and enduring legacy. What others dismiss as straightforward commercial negotiations represents, for him, a deeply personal endeavor.
This all precipitates an extraordinary paradox. Trump has emerged as golf's powerbroker, wielding influence over the sport's fractured landscape. Yet paralyzing the negotiations is the ironic fact that each faction is convinced Trump is maneuvering exclusively to advance their agenda, creating a diplomatic stalemate where mutual misinterpretation of presidential allegiance has become an obstacle to resolution.
Prior to LIV Golf's emergence, Trump had cultivated extensive Saudi connections. During his first administration as president, Trump fostered an intimate relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—a partnership whose resilience transcended his presidency, most notably evidenced when Trump's son-in-law and former senior advisor, Jared Kushner, secured a $2 billion investment from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund for his fledgling equity firm. When LIV launched in 2022, it materialized against a backdrop of golf's establishment systematically excommunicating Trump; the PGA Tour had abandoned its Miami tournament at Trump Doral, the PGA of America dramatically withdrew its PGA Championship from Trump Bedminster following the Jan. 6. 2021 insurrection, and the R&A had repeatedly, emphatically declared it would not restore Trump Turnberry to the Open Championship rotation while attention remained fixated on its proprietor. By strategically aligning with Trump, the Saudis delivered a dual victory—orchestrating lucrative tournaments at his properties and bestowing him the professional golf legitimacy he coveted. Given this calculated investment in both Trump's business empire and personal prestige, it's entirely logical that the Saudis anticipate reciprocity.
Conversely, PGA Tour insiders remain convinced Trump harbors genuine disdain for LIV Golf—a sentiment McIlroy vocalized last month. As a lifelong golf fan, Trump recognizes the PGA Tour as the sport's standard-bearer and covets continued association with the league. Unsurprisingly, whispers have intensified suggesting that, upon consummation of any agreement, Trump would campaign for Doral's reinstatement to the tour's rotation. Sources familiar with the tour's calculus further reveal that Trump's ambitions extend beyond regular tour events—he remains fixated on securing a major championship at one of his properties, a dream whose feasibility hinges entirely on garnering support from America's golf establishment. This reality gives the PGA Tour significant leverage in the ongoing power struggle, as tour officials can help make Trump's golf aspirations come true.
Warren Little
As two high-level sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations disclosed to Golf Digest, the tour delegation arrived in Washington D.C. last month confident, convinced that Trump's tacit endorsement had tilted the balance of power in their favor. However, the White House meeting’s aftermath left Al-Rumayyan bewildered and incensed, reportedly characterizing the tour's proposals as not merely inadequate but disrespectful. This misalignment has crystallized into hardened perceptions, with each faction now harboring the following assessments of their counterparts:
• PIF officials are aware that the Strategic Sports Group forged its landmark partnership with the PGA Tour predicated on Saudi PIF's eventual integration. SSG's consortium of billionaire investors covets the opportunity to redirect Saudi PIF's vast financial resources toward their own expansive portfolio of ventures—a complex financial choreography dramatically simplified once an American institution of the tour's stature establishes a legitimate conduit into the kingdom's seemingly bottomless treasury. While tour leadership might entertain the prospect of abandoning negotiations, their new financial overseers categorically reject this possibility. PIF, meanwhile, operates from a position of global leverage, functioning less as a conventional investment entity and more as a sovereign financial juggernaut accustomed to dictating rather than compromising.
• PGA Tour officials figure LIV has already fulfilled its fundamental purpose as Saudi Arabia's sportwashing and soft-power exercise: It delivered the kingdom unprecedented direct access to the White House's inner sanctum. From this perspective, the alleged $5 billion spent on a golf league commanding negligible viewership represents not a financial misstep but a masterful geopolitical investment yielding incalculable diplomatic dividends. With this direct channel now established, what compelling incentive exists for PIF—currently operating under stringent new cost-cutting mandates—to continue hemorrhaging capital on an entertainment venture demonstrably failing by every conventional metric? The tour, meanwhile, exudes unmistakable swagger. Television ratings have surged while LIV's viewership continues to struggle. Jon Rahm stands as the solitary elite talent to defect since LIV's inaugural season. In fact, beyond Rahm (coveted for competitive integrity), Bryson DeChambeau (valued for commercial magnetism) and Brooks Koepka (desired from the perspective that "having this major championship juggernaut competing elsewhere constitutes a liability"), virtually no substantive appetite exists to reintegrate other LIV members. Although, should the tour pivot toward a more globally oriented schedule, Cam Smith and Joaquín Niemann would ascend that priority list to some degree, according to multiple high-level sources. The question now confronting tour leadership: If they could successfully extract just one marquee name from the Rahm/DeChambeau/Koepka triumvirate ... might the moment have arrived to call LIV's existential bluff?
One certainty emerges from this impasse: Trump's proclamation that he could orchestrate reconciliation within 15 minutes has proven disconnected from the complex reality of professional golf's entrenched power struggle.
At this juncture, Monahan, according to multiple sources who spoke to Golf Digest, remains an advocate for the deal. He and his circle harbor concerns about the long-term consequences of perpetual warfare with the resources of PIF. Tour-affiliated insiders emphasize that the apparent frost between negotiating parties merely represents the standard deal of two organizations doing business. Nevertheless, the noteworthy pivot from McIlroy and Adam Scott—now publicly suggesting the tour might prosper independently—reveals a seismic shift in the internal narrative (a striking departure from McIlroy's previous impassioned evangelism regarding a deal's absolute necessity).
Monahan is slated to address the media at the Players Championship next week, standing at the identical podium where, precisely three years earlier, he defiantly proclaimed his tour's permanent disengagement from LIV Golf. The only certainty amid this standoff is that meaningful re-engagement remains a distant prospect.