PGA Tour on meeting with LIV Golf’s Yasir Al-Rumayyan: ‘We want to get this right’

The Tour released a statement on Saturday morning that the meeting went off as planned.

After Rory McIlroy confirmed earlier this week that a number of PGA Tour representatives, including Commissioner Jay Monahan and Tiger Woods, would be meeting in person with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the Tour released a statement on Saturday morning that the meeting went off as planned.

Here’s what was released by the Tour:

As previously stated, our negotiations with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) have accelerated in recent months. Representatives from the PGA TOUR Enterprises Transaction Subcommittee and the PIF have been meeting multiple times weekly to work through potential deal terms and come to a shared vision on the future of professional golf. On Friday evening, an in-person session in New York City included the entire Transaction Subcommittee and PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan and his team, where more progress was made. We remain committed to these negotiations, which require working through complex considerations to best position golf for global growth. We want to get this right, and we are approaching discussions with careful consideration for our players, our fans, our partners and the game’s future.

McIlroy said in pressers prior to this week’s Memorial that members of the Tour’s Transaction Subcommittee have talked three times a week with the Saudis. The New York meeting represented their first in-person gathering since March. The other members of the committee are Adam Scott, board liaison Joe Ogilvie, Enterprises chairman Joe Gorder and Fenway Sports Group principal John Henry.

The PGA Tour has entered into an agreement for Strategic Sports Group to invest at least $1.5 billion and as much as $3 billion into the Tour’s new for-profit entity. The Tour and PIF met in March in the Bahamas after the Players Championship for the first time. Jimmy Dunne, whose secret meeting with Al-Rumayyan in early 2023 led to the Framework Agreement, resigned from the Tour board in mid-May citing “no meaningful progress” toward a deal with PIF. Woods and Jordan Spieth, both fellow Tour player directors, disagreed with Dunne and called that a false narrative.

In an exclusive interview with Golfweek, Ogilvie characterized the first meeting between player-directors and Al-Rumayyan as “perfect.”

“It was a perfect first meeting. When we were going into the room, one of the big things was how do we address him? If we’re gonna address him as His Excellency, that’s just kind of weird,” Ogilvie said. “He comes in the room, shakes everyone’s hand, and looks you right in the eye and says, ‘My name is Yasir. Please call me Yasir.’ I had heard that he’s a nice man and that he loves the game of golf, and nothing told me otherwise after meeting him. It would be naive to think that we’re going to come out of that meeting with a handshake deal and say, ‘We’re done here.’

“It was a very good meeting and you could see that there was a mutual respect between he and Jay, which is also good.”

See more from that extensive Q&A with Ogilvie here.

Exclusive Q&A: Joe Ogilvie on the PGA Tour’s future, the Saudi deal, and boardroom strife

Ogilvie sat down with Golfweek for a wide-ranging interview on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the controversial Framework Agreement with the Saudis.

In 14 seasons on the PGA Tour, Joe Ogilvie made 399 starts and notched one win before quitting a decade ago to become a money manager. Yet his impact seems destined to exceed his résumé after his recent appointment to the Tour’s Policy Board and to the board of the new for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises. He is the eyes, ears (and perhaps the brain) of the Tour’s player-directors, and was also named to the committee that will directly negotiate with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.

In a wide-ranging interview on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the controversial Framework Agreement with the Saudis, Ogilvie talks about boardroom dysfunction, Jon Rahm’s miscalculation, Jay Monahan’s job performance, and how private equity might radically reshape the Tour.

Joe Ogilvie: Obviously I played for 15 years and was previously a board member. I’ve kept my eye on the game. When the Framework Agreement happened, I started to get a lot of calls. As we were starting to look at private equity, I was asked to write a letter just to say, hey, what are we looking at? Do we own the Tour? I was on the board of the Tour and when you’re trying to play with the best in the world and also trying to be a part of the governance structure, it’s a big learning curve. They don’t send you to Wharton to take a 3-day course on how to be a director. You’re thrown into it. I think my 10 years away from the game managing money and looking at companies, you learn a lot. Having business experience as well as player experience, I can translate both worlds. I think the players looked at that like it’s a valuable skill.

Enterprises is where the cash flow is going to go through, but Inc. is a huge part because they own about 88%, 88.4% of the business. Something like that. The way it happens is the money waterfalls down, 88.4% or whatever Inc. owns, they get that amount of the cash flow and that’s paid out as purses. The Enterprise board will have an outsized influence over the business. And I think Inc. has been somewhat, well, I guess a kind word would be dysfunctional. The Enterprise board is the one that’s making a lot of the decisions for the business.

Yeah, that is a fair statement. In retrospect, if you had a big mulligan you’d certainly handle the Framework Agreement differently. I think everybody involved would say they bungled the rollout of that. If you’d have had a kind of mea culpa and all got in a room and said we botched this, if everyone had humility. It’s really unfortunate because the independent directors — I mean, I’ve seen stories about how much they’re making, things like that. It’s the only board where I guarantee you it’s costing them a quarter of a million dollars a year to serve. They don’t get paid. A lot of them fly privately. They’re paying that cost. The PGA Tour doesn’t pay that cost. These are great businessmen and women that love the game and they’re lending their expertise to the PGA Tour. It was basically a very closed decision-making process on doing the Framework Agreement. It was almost unrecoverable from there. Something had to give once there wasn’t a two-week therapy session between the board. I don’t know if that’s the right way to term it, but it never happened. Humility goes a long way and I don’t think there was a whole lot of humility. That’s my take. I wasn’t involved in those discussions, but it did get divided. There were massive trust issues and once you lose trust, it’s incredibly hard to earn back.

Unfortunately, I think long-term it probably helps. Jimmy’s a force of nature and a highly-regarded figure in golf and investment banking. A legend. I think it was handled very poorly to not bring other board members in. The fact that he broke through that wall and actually started discussions will probably be looked at very kindly. But him going off the board was I think very helpful.

Obviously, you’re talking about [board chair] Ed Herlihy. I don’t know what Ed wants to do. His term as chair ends in November. He was a big part of ending the litigation, which is incredibly helpful. That’s his biggest service to the organization because that was just incredibly expensive and it would seem to be never-ending.

When the PGA Tour negotiated investment from Strategic Sports Group, there was a lot of heavy lifting that went into that agreement. That would probably be the basis for any other investor to come in now, whether they have to pay more or whatever. The basic structure is more or less the same. Keep in mind, in the year since the Framework Agreement the Department of Justice has come down on companies that have board representation with a conflict, where they had ownership stakes in companies that could be perceived as a competitor. You have that situation if the [Saudi Arabian} Public Investment Fund invested in the PGA Tour. Clearly with LIV, they’re a competitor. So there’s some nuances to it, but I think with that SSG deal a lot of the heavy lifting has already been done.

Patrick’s obviously a voice. When he speaks, and he doesn’t speak very often, he carries a lot of weight. But I’ve only been on the board since May 9th. Patrick is incredibly detail-oriented. I joked with him one time that if he wasn’t a professional golfer he could be a distressed debt investor and probably make more money. He remembers facts and he’s a bulldog. He has strong opinions. I’ve read what’s been said, about he’s controlling the board and all that kind of stuff. I don’t want to say it’s wildly inaccurate, but I would say it’s very inaccurate.

Under those circumstances, it was difficult. I realize Tiger Woods went on the board without a process, but the governance documents hadn’t been done yet. When Webb said he was going to resign and he was going to name his successor, there’s not a corporation in the world that would allow that to happen. Unless Webb was a 90% owner in the business. When you’ve been trying to fight for governance, under those circumstances, I think it was tough, no matter how important Rory McIlroy is. Rory’s opinion matters as much as any director in that room. I hope he eventually comes on the board.

It was a perfect first meeting. When we were going into the room, one of the big things was how do we address him? If we’re gonna address him as His Excellency, that’s just kind of weird. He comes in the room, shakes everyone’s hand, and looks you right in the eye and says, ‘My name is Yasir. Please call me Yasir.’ I had heard that he’s a nice man and that he loves the game of golf, and nothing told me otherwise after meeting him. It would be naive to think that we’re going to come out of that meeting with a handshake deal and say, ‘We’re done here.’  It was a very good meeting and you could see that there was a mutual respect between he and Jay, which is also good.

That was not raised.

When you do a deal with a partner, you want to know who you’re dealing with. I think it’s really difficult in a global economy. You certainly want great values and everything else. But cultures and countries evolve. And they don’t evolve as fast as sometimes we want them to evolve.

Yeah, I know. Look, it’s a very messy world. You hope things evolve. That society has by any measure gotten better. It’s better now than it was 10 years ago. It was better 10 years ago than it was 20 years ago. And I’m assuming it will be better 10 years from now. You can’t paralyze yourself. You can’t expect perfection. You just want things to evolve in a better way. And I think that’s obviously what the kingdom wants to do. They will get there, or they will have to get there because tourism is a big part of their push. If they don’t, it’s going to be very difficult to achieve their vision.

I think everybody in golf wants to figure it out. I mean, the PGA Championship was fantastic. Bryson put on a show, Xander obviously put on a show. It was better when everybody is playing the same events. So there’s a huge incentive to figure this thing out, and there’s a huge incentive on their side as well. I think they wanna do a deal. As far as SSG, they committed to $3 billion. I think that they committed with the hope that there would be another investor, specifically the PIF. There’s plenty of capital on their side, so I think that they would be happy to put in more. Now, it’s obviously harder to put in capital when you’ve got someone with deep pockets that is willing to lose a lot of money. That’s a tough thing to juxtapose. So we’ll see. I’m hopeful that something can happen. I think everybody wants it to happen, which is a prerequisite.

It doesn’t. It was certainly shocking. It was a negotiating tactic to take a player like Jon, and for Jon to go. That was definitely a shot across the bow.

It doesn’t help. It certainly doesn’t help. And that’s a sticking point. Guys that stayed loyal now have equity in the PGA Tour. Did they get as much money as if they would have gone to LIV? No. However, it’s a very valuable security. They are owners. It takes some of the sting out, but we’re going to have to figure that part out. If we were to come to a deal, those problems could be ironed out. But not everybody’s gonna be happy with the way they’re ironed out.

I don’t. I don’t think it’s much different than being a new parent. It’s a fundamental difference. We’re only approaching three months into this so there’ll be growing pains. Tour players have been through a lot in the last two years. They will see some changes. I don’t know what those will be.  Not only players but don’t forget our employees as well. Private equity expects a return. You can get a return by growing revenues, you can get a return by reducing expenses. It’s not all going to be reduction. It’s going to be growing a business. For this to work, we’ve got to grow the game of golf and grow the PGA Tour in the right way. So for the vast majority of Tour players, their job is still gonna be the same — go out and try to shoot 66.

That’s probably likely. You’re seeing it now, right? A Q-school guy will probably only get into 14 or 15 500-point events [non-Signature tournaments in the FedEx Cup schedule]. You’re behind the eight ball. It’ll be interesting. Next week, you’ve got the Memorial, then the U.S. Open and then the Travelers. The average guy will not play for three straight weeks. Everybody that I’ve listened to from the player side said, look, if you’re gonna call me a Tour player, I wanna be a Tour player. But maybe I’m not a PGA Tour player. Maybe I’m a Korn Ferry Tour player. Just tell me what I am and be honest about it. So I think you’re probably likely to have a reduction in the number of wholly exempt players.

I don’t know. It depends on a lot of different factors. What does the fall look like? We have a lot of tournaments in the fall that signed up when they were in the FedEx Cup season and now it’s different. So I don’t know that answer. That could be talked about. The 2025 schedule, there’s not going to be a whole lot of change. 2026 is when you’ll start seeing some change.

Clearly, you want to get to a place where the best are playing against each other more often. Our sponsors want that, our fans certainly want that, our network partners want it. Everybody wants that. So how does that work? Maybe it’s domestically and maybe it’s internationally. I think you’ve got opportunity in the fall. And to help the DP World Tour as well. They’re our partners and the DP World Tour can be a bridge in this, especially from a fall standpoint. If we can get it where there’s a peaceful co-existence, some of the rhetoric’s out and instead of talking about how much money a guy won on Sunday, they talk about a trophy. Money’s been talked about ad nauseam. I’m watching the Canadian Open right now. I can tell you that Mackenzie Hughes doesn’t care how much money they’re playing for. Same thing with Bobby MacIntyre and Ben Griffin and Ryan Fox. They want that trophy and hopefully that is recognized again sooner rather than later.

Six out of the last 10 weeks ratings have actually gone up. The sport of golf is in a good spot. You’re seeing massive uptake in women and junior golfers. The only people we’re seeing playing fewer rounds are Irish journalists.

But that normally translates. It may not translate right away, but I think professional golf should be in a pretty darn good place. The narrative that nothing’s going on and nothing’s getting done will be firmly retired in the next four months. You’re going to see a lot of energy out of Ponte Vedra Beach about what the future of professional golf is gonna look like.

Jay kind of got on his back foot with the Framework Agreement rollout being challenged but Jay is a survivor. He’s got a huge amount of respect from his team. The players over time went from, ‘Let’s get rid of this guy’ to ‘This is the guy who’s gonna lead us.’  He’s incredibly good when he’s engaged with sponsors, he’s incredibly good one-on-one with the guys. I think he wishes he had a one-year mulligan, It was obviously an incredibly stressful time. He might get the Comeback Player of the Year award.

Yeah, he does. Jay is uniquely suited to accomplish the goals of not only what SSG wants, but what the players want. He’s got the respect of other leaders of the game and I think he’s got the respect of the PIF.

I don’t think they want to run the business, I really don’t. They want to be in the room where it happens and they want a say on what goes on between the ropes, if there’s anything that’s going to affect their livelihoods. Like, you’ve gotta go play certain places, certain times a year. But I haven’t seen that they want to actually run the business. They look at Arthur Blank, at Joe Gorder, at John Henry and Sam Kennedy and Andy Cohen and they’re like, okay, these guys have run businesses, they own sports teams, they’ve seen what works and what doesn’t work. And we’re gonna take a lot of their suggestions, the vast majority of them. Some of them we’re probably not taking because they haven’t been in the game of golf and there’s some traditions in the game that are sacrosanct. Generally speaking, they know who the businessmen are in the room and they want to listen to them. That’s the way it should work.

Obviously, the business would be better if that was the case.

I don’t think it’s likely to happen in the next year or two, but you never say never. Is there a way to do it so while they’re not contracted, there are certain obligations? Maybe. If I have my business hat on, yeah, I want these guys to play as much as possible, and I want to make sure that I have at least x amount of top 10 players in the world playing every week. That would be ideal. If they played too much they’re gonna be injured at a much higher clip, so there’s a give and take.

They’ll start to see it hopefully by the playoffs, but if not they’ll definitely see it — well, the next time they see it on network television will be next year. But they will see it. I mean, if we are still talking about money or if that’s the dominating question in golf next year, we’ve failed miserably as a board. Hopefully that will go away. Max Homa was the guy who said let’s do the walk and talk, and now you’re seeing that in a major championship, which is kind of amazing. I realize social media can amplify anything, but players are talking about it, media is talking about it and I can tell you that Jay Monahan and certainly SSG and the board members are talking about it. So you’re gonna see more things. Hopefully these guys play together more often, and hopefully you’ll start to see it in ’25 and moreso in ’26.

Lynch: PGA Tour board changes prove players can’t run a billion-dollar business as a side gig

Ogilvie’s appointment is a tacit admission that the prevailing wisdom on Tour — players should be in charge — is twaddle.

Press releases issued from the PGA Tour’s Global Home are usually more noteworthy for what is omitted than what’s included, but are often so artlessly composed that a kernel of truth inadvertently reveals itself. So it is with the announcement of the slate of board members at PGA Tour. Enterprises, the new for-profit entity that will set the future shape of the men’s professional game.

The boardroom has seats for the six player-directors from the Tour’s Policy Board, none of whom have an MBA and most of whom lack a college degree. Four chairs go to Strategic Sports Group, which just invested $1.5 billion into the new company, but nothing was offered on whether those seats will be split if the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund kicks in a similar contribution. The Commissioner and an independent director from the Policy Board swell the ranks of the double-jobbers serving both panels, while Keith Pelley apparently didn’t hear the tune end in this game of musical chairs; his DP World Tour went unmentioned.

It’s the 13th man on the roster who warrants attention. Joe Ogilvie competed on the PGA Tour for 15 years before quitting in 2014 to become a money manager. He’s smart and personable, a man who studies the minutiae of the golf business with a fervor that most of his peers can only muster for yardage guides and conspiracy theories. Few people are more invested in or animated about the jacketed side of the PGA Tour.

Ogilvie was named to both the Tour’s governing Policy Board and to the board of PGA Tour Enterprises as a “director liaison” — a position described by HQ as an aide-de-camp for players facing the significant time commitment of serving on two boards. He will be additive and influential, and not only because he gives players a symbolic 7-6 majority in the room. But his appointment is a tacit admission that the prevailing wisdom on Tour — players should be in charge — is twaddle.

A small group of stars has largely assumed directional control of the Tour, but how well that works will depend on how those stars exercise the power they’ve accumulated. In their eagerness to show that they’re the captains now, newly empowered players risk confusing governance with management.

A board ought to focus on the former — strategic goals, organizational health and structure — while leaving operational decisions and execution to an executive team. But this is a member organization and every member has a granular list of grievances around which he thinks the Tour ought to be arranged. The board includes players whose faith in its executives is sorely lacking, and who are themselves overly concerned with score-settling over the secretive Framework Agreement announced on June 6.

It’s fanciful to imagine that a multi-billion dollar business can be run as a side hustle by golfers who are trying to win tournaments or just keep their cards. Even Ogilvie has a day job.

That matters because PGA Tour Enterprises faces numerous issues that are existential. A rudimentary accounting of those:

  • The lack of progress in reaching a deal with the Public Investment Fund, and what must be a gnawing fear that the Saudis are deliberately delaying things to bleed out the Tour’s product strength.
  • The looming expectations of a return on investment — or at least material changes in business operations — by the Strategic Sports Group, a daunting reckoning for a complacent, legacy organization.
  • Broadcast ratings that are sluggish at best, and worrisome at worst, and which suggest eroding consumer interest just as the Tour tries to persuade constituents that they need to invest more capital.
  • Sponsors fed up with being asked to pay more for the same, or less.
  • Tournament directors angry at having to pay higher fees to headquarters, which for many means robbing the charitable poor box to give more to millionaires.
  • Leadership that is still struggling to regain the trust of the membership nine months and one day after the Framework Agreement was announced.
  • Players who are single-mindedly bent on retribution against those who engineered that Agreement, as though the guys who did nothing but hold their own Tour hostage can claim moral superiority over those who tried to do something, imperfect as it was.
  • Rank-and-file members who see opportunities they earned be diminished because of the relentless focus on rewarding those at the top of the pyramid.
  • Stars who insist the Tour’s business be organized around them — and that they be compensated not as the assets they are, but as the owners they imagine themselves to be — while underperforming for the product in 2024.
  • Around all of that, internal and external messaging that only departs from the banal so that it might veer into the blundering.

The PGA Tour has never been in a more precarious position. It’s hardly on the brink of ruin, but there are major systemic issues that aren’t being addressed quickly enough. Some of those are concerns for the board, some for management, but there’s a palpable sense that no one is really happy. The field at Bay Hill has been almost halved to just 69 competitors, and so few were working on Wednesday afternoon that the occupants of the practice putting green barely outnumbered LIV’s spectators in Jeddah last weekend. “Arnold Palmer would be so f****** pissed to see what has gone on here,” one tournament veteran said. “It feels like a member-guest.”

That from a Tour loyalist.

The coming months will expose how Balkanized things have become on the Tour’s Policy Board, which can only bleed into the newly-constituted board of PGA Tour Enterprises given the overlap. There exists no unity of vision for the future of the Tour among the 13 men on this board, at least not yet. Eventually, one faction will win the squabble over who gets to pilot the ship. Maybe then they’ll actually notice that their paying passengers have been quietly disembarking for a while.

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PGA Tour Enterprises launched with nine players, including Tiger Woods, on board of directors

The more significant news was the naming of retired Tour pro Joe Ogilvie to the board.

The newly formed PGA Tour Enterprises announced its first board of directors on Wednesday.

The 13-member board has nine PGA Tour Directors, approved by the Tour’s Policy Board, and four Strategic Sports Group Directors, appointed by the SSG investor group. This board will lead all commercial activities related to the PGA Tour and will focus on driving fan engagement and growth, as well as developing new media, sponsorship and commercial opportunities.

All six current Player Directors from the Tour Policy Board will simultaneously serve on the Tour Enterprises Board of Directors: Patrick Cantlay, Peter Malnati, Adam Scott, Webb Simpson, Jordan Spieth and Tiger Woods.

The more significant news was the naming of retired Tour pro Joe Ogilvie to the board.

“Given the significant time investment required from the players to serve on both Boards – and as part of the Tour’s governance review – the Player Directors identified the benefit of having a ‘Director Liaison’ on both Boards as well,” the Tour said in a news release. “Ogilvie will join the PGA Tour Policy Board and the PGA Tour Enterprises Board of Directors.

Joe Gorder, who serves as an Independent Director on the Tour Policy Board, and PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan round out the Tour representation on the Enterprises Board. Monahan will serve as the CEO of Enterprises, and Woods will serve as the Vice Chairman of the Board.

As announced in January, SSG – a consortium of American sports team owners led by Fenway Sports Group – joined PGA Tour Enterprises as a minority investor, providing an initial $1.5 billion of capital that will “unlock investment opportunities to grow the Tour and enhance the game of golf around the world.”

The four SSG Directors will be:

  • John W. Henry, Principal, Fenway Sports Group; Manager, Strategic Sports Group
  • Arthur M. Blank, Co-Founder, Home Depot; Owner and Chairman, AMB Sports and Entertainment (Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta Drive GC, PGA Tour Superstore)
  • Andrew B. Cohen, Chief Investment Officer and Co-Founder, Cohen Private Ventures; Vice Chairman, New York Mets
  • Sam Kennedy, Partner/CEO, Fenway Sports Group; President & CEO, Boston Red Sox

The PGA Tour Enterprises Board will elect a chairman at an upcoming meeting.

“Today’s announcement is another milestone for our organization, as I believe we have arrived at a PGA Tour Enterprise’s Board of Directors with the right composition, expertise and balance necessary to take our organization into the future,” said Monahan. “Our current and former players will provide essential insight into our members’ priorities and needs. And we welcome key SSG members to the leadership team, whose exceptional track records and achievements in global professional sports will lend a wealth of knowledge into the opportunities ahead for the PGA Tour. Their expertise will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in the success and growth of our commercial initiatives.

“It’s an opportunity for us to shape something special that will not only create more value for the PGA Tour, but will also benefit and grow our fanbase,” the Player Directors and Liaison Director said in a joint statement.  “We’re ready to get started.”

“Our role on the Enterprises board will focus on hearing Player Director ideas and working alongside them to ensure the sport’s commercial growth occurs in a way that creates the best possible product for fans,” said Henry. “All of us at Strategic Sports Group see a bright future for the PGA Tour and the constitution of the Enterprises Board is an important first step in realizing that future.”

In addition to Ogilvie’s forthcoming appointment, Monahan will be a voting member as well, which will expand that Policy Board from 12 to 14.

Player Directors

Patrick Cantlay, Peter Malnati, Adam Scott, Webb Simpson, Jordan Spieth, Tiger Woods

Liaison Director

Joe Ogilvie

PGA Tour Commissioner

Jay Monahan

Independent Directors

Edward Herlihy, Jimmy Dunne, Mark Flaherty, Mary Meeker, Joe Gorder

PGA of America Director

John Lindert

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Former PGA Tour pro known as ‘The Lil Commish’ pens open letter to membership

Joe Ogilvie wants the PGA Tour membership to understand the unique position they are in.

If you’re confused by the current state of the PGA Tour’s negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and reports that other investment opportunities from U.S.-based interests have emerged, you’re not alone.

Imagine being one of the 500 or so members of the PGA Tour with some level of status and a whole lot of uncertainty. That’s where former PGA Tour pro Joe Ogilvie has stepped in to explain the current state of play in a way that is easy to understand. Ogilvie, who played on the PGA Tour from 1999-2014 and now manages money for Wallace Capital Management, sent an open letter to membership of the Tour dated Oct. 24, that Golfweek obtained. Ogilvie, who formerly served as a player director on the Tour’s policy board and earned the nickname “The Lil Commish” during his playing days for his knowledge of the Tour’s inner workings and expressed desire to someday follow in the footsteps of Deane Beman from player to running the business, has long been considered one of the smartest voices in the game and remains tapped into Tour happenings.

In a letter that stretched onto three pages, Ogilvie asserts that “there has never been a better time to be a PGA Tour member” but there are critical decisions to be made and he highlights both the pros and cons to be considered.

Adding a partner may or may not be necessary, Ogilvie points out, but he wants the membership to understand what that means and the unique position they are in.

“If we sell a part of our Tour, we are taking on a close partner. It’s not dissimilar to getting married,” Ogilvie writes. “Once consummated, the decision-making by law will require that the best interests of all parties be considered, including your new spouse. We can’t take their money and check in with them on occasion, they’re in bed with us. They will be part of our Tour, for better or for worse. We must understand the detailed motivations of any new investor and how they will participate in the functioning of the board.”

Ogilvie doesn’t suggest what he believes the best course of action for the Tour is other than to advise the players that addressing governance on the front end is important, and reminding the players that it is their tour. While they don’t own it, if they were to adopt a “for profit” model, they must ensure they remain in control.

“The players must continue to hold governance control of the new for-profit entity and the original not-for-profit entity,” he writes. “Any new seats assumed by an investor must maintain the player’s relative control position on the board.”

Here’s a copy of the full open letter to the membership.


October 24, 2023

Open letter to the membership of the PGA Tour,

From 1999-2014 I was lucky enough to be in your shoes. It was an incredible time to be on Tour. Tiger Woods put the golf world on his shoulders, and everyone involved in the game rode the wave. During that time, the PGA Tour established itself as a tour with no equals. We played in the largest economy in the world; 90% of the tournaments were located within three time zones, perfect courses, a rabid fan base, and the world’s most famous athlete (not named Michael Jordan) played on the PGA Tour. It wasn’t a fair fight.

Most of those conditions remain today. The US is the largest economy in the world, the PGA Tour plays 90% of its tournaments within three time zones, the courses are the best conditioned globally, the fans are incredible, and instead of one giant needle mover (Tiger), we have the youngest, deepest collection of stars in the history of the PGA Tour.

Just as important, in the age of streaming, sports became the only product you have to watch live. The value of sports on TV and digital rights exploded just when the PGA Tour’s previous TV contract (which was awful) expired. The new TV deal started in 2022, the same year Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) put $2B into professional golf and created LIV Golf. Tiger Woods created a financial wave for my generation. The lalapalooza effect of new competition coupled with skyrocketing values of sports rights has created a financial tsunami for yours.

And this tsunami is why the opportunity to invest in your Tour has generated so much interest. Whether it’s the Saudi PIF framework agreement or other private equity proposals, they all share something in common. The PGA Tour will be split into two entities: a new for-profit, PGA Tour Enterprises, and a not-for-profit entity, the existing PGA Tour, Inc.

The current PGA Tour is organized as a 501(c)6, and as a tax-exempt entity, by law there can be no owners. Each one of you is a member of a sports league that exists to promote professional golf, financially support the staging of its tournaments, invest in the PGA Tour organization and all the ancillary products therein (Shotlink, PGATour.com, the TPC Network, The Players, President’s Cup, etc.). It’s confusing, but we are the sole members of a not-for-profit entity, that owns a collection of assets worth billions of dollars.

How could a 501c6 be worth billions? Let’s take the old Honda Classic as an illustration of potential asset value. If this tournament were franchised (like in the NFL, MLB and the NBA), allowing someone to “own” the only PGA Tour event held in the Palm Beaches, the franchise value would be north of $100MM without breaking a sweat. Now think about the worth of The Players or President’s Cup, it is not a stretch to value each in excess of $1.5B. More than sports-washing, this unique circumstance is why the Saudi PIF and many outside investors are excited to invest in your Tour.

The Saudi PIF and the other outside investors predominantly operate in the arena of “Private Equity,” often referred to as PE. These are large, well-capitalized companies employing many brilliant, ambitious people. PEs invest intending to earn outsized returns for their investors, which will lead to enormous pay packages for themselves at exit (the Saudi PIF has other reasons, but despite the rhetoric you hear about unlimited money, they demand a return on their capital).

As a rule, if a PE firm were to invest $1B into a newly formed PGA Tour Enterprises, in 5 or 6 years, they would expect that $1B investment to be worth at least $2B. That $1B increase in value might be earned by cutting unprofitable parts of the business, selling off or divesting assets, driving the organization to run leaner and more efficiently, and wisely using debt. They also look for opportunities to invest and capture more revenue. In the PGA Tour’s case, that could be through an increase in ticket prices, the creation of premium experiences, different tournament venues/cities, and better economics from activities like the Ryder Cup (the Europeans demanded and received ownership around 1987, without paying a dime). These opportunities are initiated through the PEs participation on the board of directors. Make no mistake, any investment by PE will be accompanied by a demand for seats on the entity’s board of directors: that’s commonly referred to as governance rights.

This is a critical point for every Tour member to understand. If we sell a part of our Tour, we are taking on a close partner. It’s not dissimilar to getting married. Once consummated, the decision-making by law will require that the best interests of all parties be considered, including your new spouse. We can’t take their money and check in with them on occasion, they’re in bed with us. They will be part of our Tour, for better or for worse. We must understand the detailed motivations of any new investor and how they will participate in the functioning of the board.

Therefore, as we consider taking on a financial partner for the Tour, it is important we first achieve the following key objectives and consider our unique position: Before any deal is consummated, it is imperative to codify in the PGA Tour bylaws: The policy board of the PGA Tour will be made up of a majority of player directors, with identical voting rights as the independent directors. The framework agreement was the most important decision since Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus created the modern PGA Tour and was made without a single PGA Tour player’s input, including those players representing you on the PGA Tour policy board.

The players must continue to hold governance control of the new for-profit entity and the original not-for-profit entity. Any new seats assumed by an investor must maintain the player’s relative control position on the board.

As the sole members of a 501c6, the assets of the PGA Tour are unencumbered by legacy ownership. This is important to remember and understand. MLB and NFL established team ownership long before they gave up their 501c6 status, we have a clean slate.

The interests of any new investor must be aligned as much as possible with those of the players, elevating and enhancing the stage where the best professional golfers in the world showcase their craft. Improvement in that stage through our venues, investment in the digital product, and TV production will improve the fan experience, which will lead to continued advances in purses.

Lastly, culture and values matter in a partner. Golf is a unique game with traditions built over centuries; we want a partner that thinks and invests in decades rather than years.

There has never been a better time to be a PGA Tour member; getting the governance right today will ensure the stars of tomorrow will feel the same way. Earning the right to call yourself a PGA Tour member is an incredible accomplishment and something that only about .0003% of the world’s golfers have earned, I wish you all the best for the rest of the fall and much success in the 2024 season.

My best,
Joe Ogilvie

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