PGA Tour-Pif deal – Syndication Server

Confirmed: PGA Tour and PIF to meet in person in New York on Friday afternoon — and why John Henry’s role is critical

Jay Monahan and Tiger Woods lead a group meeting in person with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan.

One day after the one-year anniversary of the PGA-Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announcing the Framework Agreement, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and Tiger Woods are leading a group that is meeting in person with the PIF’s governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan on Friday afternoon in New York.

Speaking to a handful of reporters, including Sports Illustrated’s Bob Harig on Thursday, Rory McIlroy, who was named to the Tour’s Transaction Subcommittee a few weeks ago, confirmed he would be part of the meeting, joining remotely via video conference following his second round of the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio.

McIlroy said the group has talked three times a week with the Saudis. The New York meeting represents 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.

“There’s going to be people in that room on the PGA Tour side who are going to take the lead,” McIlroy told a handful of reporters after his round. “And it’s not going to be Adam, Tiger or I. It’s going to be the business guys. We’re there to maybe give a perspective from a player’s point of view.

“This is a negotiation about an investment in the PGA Tour Enterprises, this is big-boy stuff. And I’ll certainly be doing more listening than I will be doing talking.”

Henry, whose Fenway Sports Group owns the Boston Red Sox, Liverpool Football Club and Pittsburgh Penguins, is one of the leaders of the ‘big-boy stuff.’ In an engaging profile of Henry, the Financial Times includes the story of how Strategic Sports Group, which already has invested $1.5 billion in PGA Tour Enterprises and potentially as much as $3 billion, came to be.

A year ago in June, a week after the blockbuster news of the PGA Tour-Saudi PIF’s framework agreement and intention to create a new for-profit company, Henry was in New York to attend a routine meeting of baseball owners.

Boston Red Sox owner John Henry, left., at Fenway Park before a game against the Minnesota Twins. Mandatory Credit: Paul Rutherford-USA TODAY Sports

“Henry couldn’t understand how it had come to this. Why was golf, the most well-heeled of elite sports, so desperate for financial salvation that it would merge with its ideological and marketplace opposite?” Sara Germano writes on FT.com. “Seated in a midtown skyscraper with a half-dozen of his fellow billionaires — all men, all American — at the Major League Baseball meeting, he saw a group of like-minded titans. Couldn’t they come up with an alternative plan for the PGA Tour, he wondered. Henry started asking around the room: would you put up some funds to invest in golf? How about you? To others present for the meeting, golf was the last thing they thought Henry would be interested in. “He has a lot of hobbies, but that’s not one of them,” recalled Sam Kennedy, chief executive of FSG and one of Henry’s closest associates for more than two decades. But Henry wasn’t making a passion play. He had seen a problem and was in a roomful of people with the means to fix it.”

According to the Financial Times, the baseball owner’s meeting became the launch pad of SSG, a consortium of American businessmen whose portfolios include all manner of global sports. As Arthur Blank, owner of the Atlanta Falcons and PGA Tour Superstore, told FT.com, Henry’s pitch went like this: “the world of golf was in “turmoil,” and would he have any interest in joining an optional financial lifeline to the PGA Tour, either instead of or in addition to the PIF merger?

Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank walks of the field against the Tennessee Titans during the second half at Nissan Stadium. (Photo: Steve Roberts-USA TODAY Sports)

Blank was among those owners, which also include New York Mets owner, Steve Cohen, who signed up. “We saw it as doing the right thing, as leading American businessmen,” Blank told Germano.

On the morning of Nov. 9, she reported that Woods invited the prospective investors to his oceanside offices in Jupiter, Florida.

“According to people who were present, Woods was joined by fellow players Rory McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay, as well as the Raine Group’s Colin Neville, along with various staff. Several other players tuned in via Zoom. The SSG delegation consisted of Henry, his wife Linda, FSG executives Tom Werner and Sam Kennedy, Blank and Andy Cohen of Steve Cohen’s Private Ventures, among others.”

This paragraph from the Henry profile may give a clue to his role in Friday’s meeting: “Despite his reputation, Henry was anything but reticent that morning. ‘John probably repeated 10 times, ‘We want to be aligned with the players’,” one person who was present told Germano. “It left a good impression with the golfers, and SSG went back to their offices to polish the finer points of their proposal.”

Less than a week ago, Scott told Golfweek that negotiations were about to heat up and that appears to be true.

Major champion says LIV Golf, PGA Tour arrangement is still ‘chaos’ and will be difficult to repair

“If I take 62 out of the top 70 out of a field, do I have a better shot of winning? You’re damn, right I do.”

AUSTIN, Texas — As the unveiling of a framework agreement between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund approaches its first anniversary without any major subsequent announcements, one major champion said it’s going to be nearly impossible to get the Tour and PIF-sponsored LIV Golf back on the same page.

Mark Brooks, who won the 1996 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club among his seven PGA Tour victories, called the current golf landscape “chaos” during a recent interview, adding that repairing any rifts between the two sides will be difficult, especially as both sides have become accustomed to their current arrangements.

Brooks was part of a movement to pull players together back in the 1990s called The Tour Players Association, of which he was the treasurer. Although it wasn’t a full-blown union, the idea was to bring players together to collectively bargain.

Mark Brooks kisses the Wanamaker trophy as photographers capture the moment after he beat Kenny Perry in a one-hole playoff to win the PGA Championship Sunday, Aug. 11, 1996, at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky.

He thinks such a group could have helped avoid the current issues.

“I’m surprised it took this long for some kind of splintering to happen,” Brooks said, in advance of this year’s PGA Championship.

But while he understands how the signature events and LIV Golf events, both of which do not have a cut, came to be, he’s concerned with how weak it’s left some PGA Tour events on the current calendar.

“Some of these events are, let’s just call it, top 70 shallow,” Brooks said. “Below that they’re heavy. They’re not going into, you know, past champions like me. I’m not showing up on the eligibility list, they’re not going that kind of deep. But probably 15 events this year will be very light in terms of the top 70 and you go, well, does that mean anything? Absolutely it means something. Are you kidding me?

“If I take 62 out of the top 70 out of a field, do I have a better shot of winning? You’re damn, right I do.”

Although some have insisted progress is being made behind the scenes in ongoing conversations between PIF and the PGA Tour, those arrangements are strictly financial.

Brooks said he doesn’t see an avenue for players to fully reintegrate into the PGA Tour, and he added that he thinks most aren’t interested in such a move.

Also, now that the new league has changed the game, he doesn’t see how it ever becomes one again.

“I do think it’s absolutely chaos. I think putting pieces back together, putting humpty dumpty back on the wall, it’s going to be pretty tough,” he said. “Guys don’t want to come back. They don’t have a desire to come back.”

Lynch: Tiger Woods’ old mantra gets new life — whatever you say, say nothing

Woods dodges troublesome inquiries with an enigmatic ease that would have impressed Muhammad Ali.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Through nearly three decades in the public eye, Tiger Woods has remained a consummate corporate cipher, dodging troublesome inquiries with an enigmatic ease that would have impressed Louisville’s own Muhammad Ali. No one has ever said less more often, a muscle he’ll work strenuously while facing inquiries about his work on the PGA Tour’s new subcommittee tasked with talking to the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.

On Monday, independent director Jimmy Dunne resigned from the Tour’s Policy Board and bemoaned a lack of progress in advancing the Framework Agreement with the PIF that he helped architect, the June 6 announcement of which blindsided players (including Woods) and sparked a bitter governance review during which a faction of player-directors repeatedly demanded accountability from those who worked secretly on the deal unbeknownst to the rest of the board. A day after Dunne’s departure, Woods was asked how optimistic he is about a Saudi deal being reached.

“I think we’re working on negotiations with PIF. It’s ongoing; it’s fluid; it changes day-to-day,” he said, revealing as much as a burka. “Has there been progress? Yes. But it’s an ongoing negotiation, so a lot of work ahead for all of us with this process, and so we’re making steps and it may not be giant steps, but we’re making steps.”

Unlike Rory McIlroy, who has said a deal with PIF is in the best interests of the game, Woods hasn’t detailed what resolution he’d like to see, an astute strategy in that it keeps his counterparts wondering if he wants one at all. He was a vocal critic of LIV and allied with McIlroy to reshape the Tour in an effort to prevent more players leaving, but that was before executives performed an about-face on the Saudis to rival that of Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.” Woods acknowledged that he and McIlroy are not so aligned in their thinking now.

“It’s good to see it differently, but collectively as a whole we want to see whatever’s best for all the players, the fans, and the state of golf,” he said. “How we get there, that’s to be determined, but the fact that we’re in this together and in this fight together to make golf better is what it’s all about.”

PGA CHAMPIONSHIP: How to watch | Tournament hub

Pressed on what he wants to see happen, Woods blocked: “I’m not going to comment. Except that we’re making steps. That’s all I can say.”

Are you personally open to a deal with the Saudis?

“I’m personally involved in the process.”

Dunne called me Monday evening and described his position on the board as having become “superfluous,” describing a ghostly existence in which he wasn’t a decision-maker and wasn’t consulted by those who are — a predictable result of his role in the Framework Agreement. Woods was asked if he agreed with Dunne’s assessment.

“No,” he replied. “Jimmy and the amount of work and dedication that he put into the board and to the PGA Tour, it’s been incredible. It was a bit surprising that he resigned yesterday and just how it all came about, but, no, his role and his help, then what he’s been able to do for the PGA Tour has been great.”

It was a commendable effort at sincerity. Woods’ fellow director, Jordan Spieth, was also at pains to push back on a narrative that players now wield too much power, insisting that good governance has now been established. He used the word “balance” or a derivation thereof 11 times in his Tuesday press conference.

Tiger Woods smiled as his group approached the 5th green during a practice round in the PGA Championship at the Valhalla Golf Course in Louisville, Ky. on May. 14, 2024.

If Woods is opposed to or ambivalent about a Saudi deal, he finds himself now in an awkward position. No one will be collaring PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan during negotiations to raise human rights abuses by the government whose slush fund he runs. Those in the room are determined to treat this dispute as purely commercial in nature. But no matter how artfully it is dressed up — unifying the game for fans, offering clarity to sponsors, safeguarding the PGA Tour — the entire sport will assume enormous reputational risk if it chooses to be in business with a mercurial dictator who dissects dissidents.

Should a PIF the deal happen? If morality matters, absolutely not. The game shouldn’t be leveraged to sportswashers under the guise of unity.

Will a PIF deal happen? It’s more likely than not, since all parties are incentivized to make it happen.

If terms can’t be agreed upon, multiple scenarios become the subject of conjecture. Can the PGA Tour go it alone with private equity? Do those investors have the stomach for financing a battle against the Saudis? Will players try waiting out PIF’s willingness to torch a billion-plus annually on a failed product? Would PIF seek to upend Europe’s strategic alliance with the PGA Tour?

None of those are readily answerable questions, but since they’re questions of commerce, they are a damned sight easier for the powers that be to consider than one simple question of conscience.

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Tiger Woods on the state of his game, PGA Tour-PIF negotiations and that goatee

Here are four things to know from Tiger’s pre-tournament press conference.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Tiger Woods remembers the feeling of walking in his birdie putt at the 16^th hole at the 2000 PGA Championship en route to a playoff victory over Bob May that marked his third straight major triumph.

“I just remember the pressure that I felt, the chance, an opportunity to do something that Ben Hogan did in 1953,” Woods said on Tuesday during his pre-tournament press conference ahead of his 24^th career start at the PGA Championship. “With all of that pressure and we kept feeding off of one another. He would make a putt, I would make a putt, I would make a putt, he would make a putt. It was a fun back nine.

“We never really missed shots on that back nine and then in the three-hole playoff. For us to shoot those low of scores, it was special.”

Woods would like to rediscover some of that old magic as he pursues his 16^th major championship and a fifth PGA Championship title this week at Valhalla Golf Club. But he also is quick to point out that that was a long time ago and the course, which will play over 7,600 yards, has changed a lot over the years.

“We were talking last week when we came up (about) how many 2-irons I used to hit off this property. Now it’s, everything is drivers. Just because they moved it back, it’s longer. But the first hole I hit driver and a 60-degree sand wedge in there. Today I hit a driver and a 5-wood. So it’s a bit different.”

PGA CHAMPIONSHIP: How to watch | Tournament hub

Here are four more things to know from Tiger’s pre-tournament press conference.

State of his game

Tiger hasn’t played since the Masters, where he made the cut but ran out of gas on the weekend. Asked to assess the state of his game, he said, “I wish my game was a little bit sharper. Again, I don’t have a lot of competitive reps, so I am having to rely on my practice sessions and getting stuff done either at home or here on-site.”

Tiger came here last week on a scouting trip and returned to practice on Sunday and Monday to take advantage of the better weather before the rain hit on Tuesday. He also pointed out that the course isn’t as difficult of a walk compared to Augusta National – “just stay out of the rough,” he said – and feels he can still stoke memories of his 2000 win.

“I still feel that I can win golf tournaments,” he said. “I still feel I can hit the shots and still feel like I still have my hand around the greens and I can putt. I just need to do it for all four days, not like I did at Augusta for only two.” He added: “At the end of the day, I need to be ready mentally and physically come Thursday.”

PGA Tour-PIF negotiations

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan (L) meets with Tiger Woods during the Pro-Am of the Genesis Open at the Riviera Country Club on February 14, 2018, in Pacific Palisades, California. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)

As a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board and with his role on the newly-created Transaction Subcommittee, Tiger knew he would be bombarded with questions about negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and he was ready to say very little. He kept the good stuff close to his Sun Day Red vest.

But here’s what he did share: “We’re working on negotiations with PIF. It’s ongoing; it’s fluid; it changes day to day. Has there been progress? Yes. But it’s an ongoing negotiation, so a lot of work ahead for all of us with this process, and so we’re making steps and it may not be giant steps, but we’re making steps.”

On seeing the future of golf differently than Rory McIlroy: it’s good to see it differently, but collectively as a whole we want to see whatever’s best for all the players, the fans, and the state of golf. How we get there, that’s to be determined, but the fact that we’re in this together and in this fight together to make golf better is what it’s all about.”

On Jimmy Dunne’s resignation from the PGA Tour Policy Board yesterday: “It was a bit surprising that he resigned yesterday and just how it all came about, but, no, his role and his help, then what he’s been able to do for the PGA Tour has been great.”

On fans tuning out pro golf amidst the turbulence between the Tour and LIV: “I think the fans are probably as tired as we are of the talk of not being about the game of golf and about not being about the players. It’s about what LIV is doing, what we’re doing, players coming back, players leaving, the fans just want to see us play together. How do we get there is to be determined. “

U.S. Ryder Cup captaincy – still TBD

If you bet on the next U.S. Ryder Cup captain being announced officially this week, well, you can rip up your ticket. Tiger confirmed he’s had discussions since the Masters with PGA CEO Seth Waugh but no decision has been made yet.

“We’re still talking. There’s nothing that has been confirmed yet. We’re still working on what that might look like. Also whether or not I have the time to do it,” he said. “I’m dedicating my so much time to what we’re doing with the PGA Tour, I don’t want to not fulfill the role of the captaincy if I can’t do it. What that all entails and representing Team USA and the commitments to the PGA of America, the players, and the fans and as I said, all of Team USA. I need to feel that I can give the amount of time that it deserves.”

Tiger did not disclose a timetable on making this decision.

And the goatee?

Tiger Woods at a press conference prior to the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club.

Tiger was told that the Internet was loving his facial hair, which he showed up with this week at Valhalla. Asked if the goatee was a conscious decision or laziness, he laughed and said, “It’s the second. I’m definitely lazy. I cut myself this morning trying to trim it up so it is what it is.” Tiger Woods, just like us.

Report: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver ‘not interested’ in running PGA Tour-Saudi PIF’s new commercial entity

Looks like NBA Commissioner Adam Silver won’t be trading basketballs for golf balls.

According to a report in the New York Times’s Deal Book, a prospective investor considering investing in the new commercial entity reached out to the longtime hoops executive about heading up the business venture from the PGA Tour-Saudi PIF framework agreement.

According to Deal Book reporter Lauren Hirsch, he “isn’t interested,” but wrote the move to explore his interest in the deal “reflects the size of the ambitions for the sports endeavor.”

“Media is a big part of these plans, as investors bet on the fervor of big broadcasters and tech companies for live programming to lift sports league valuations. The PGA Tour signed a nine-year TV agreement with CBS Sports, NBC Sports and ESPN in 2020, and industry executives expect the likes of Amazon, Apple and YouTube to compete for the next deal,” Hirsch wrote. “This was the context for the effort to recruit Silver, who has been praised for his handling of NBA streaming rights.”

Golfweek previously reported that the Tour has narrowed the potential list of investors being considered as private equity partners in its new for-profit entity to five.

The Tour held its final board meeting of the year on Monday. In a memo to players obtained by Golfweek, Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan addressed the bidding to be the Tour’s main private equity partner. “Additionally, as you know, the Framework Agreement with PIF and the DP World Tour generated unsolicited – although not surprising – interest from numerous outside potential investors. The opportunity to potentially participate in the transformative growth of the PGA Tour for the first time brought forth dozens of inbound prospects, which were all initially vetted by the Tour’s investment bank, Allen & Company,” he wrote. “In the Policy Board meeting, we reviewed these remaining bids with the Independent Directors and Player Directors – with input from Allen & Co. and The Raine Group – and agreed to continue the negotiation process in order to select the final minority investor(s) in a timely manner.”

The Framework Agreement has a Dec. 31 deadline to reach a definitive deal between the Tour and the PIF, but that date is widely expected to be pushed deep into 2024.

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LIV Golf signs on high-powered D.C. lobbying firm amid congressional probe

A representative of Akin Gump said Al-Rumayyan should not be forced to take part in any future hearings.

As a congressional probe into LIV Golf and the Saudi Arabia-backed Public Investment Fund (PIF) continues to press for testimony from the fund’s governor, a high-powered Washington D.C. lobbying firm has been retained to help shield Yasir Al-Rumayyan from having to speak publicly.

According to Politico, Akin Gump Strauss & Feld has been retained by PIF as the sovereign fund pushes back against the probe, insisting that some of the inquiry is subject to immunity.

In June, PGA Tour Chief Operating Officer Ron Price and board member Jimmy Dunne were sworn in at a Senate subcommittee hearing in Washington D.C. to discuss the proposed deal between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is the chairman of the committee and has been publicly critical of the deal, which is expected to unite the two once-warring factions in golf under the same commercial umbrella.

According to Politico, a representative of Akin Gump said Al-Rumayyan should not be forced to take part in any future hearings.

Raphael Prober, a lawyer at the firm, wrote to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on behalf of the Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), arguing that the governor of the fund “cannot participate in any public hearing that is part of an unbounded inquiry into the PIF’s past, present, and future interests and investments.”

Blumenthal, who chairs the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has requested testimony from PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan since June.

“An unprecedented effort by the Subcommittee to compel [Al-Rumayyan’s] appearance and testimony would not only disrupt the delicate balance of foreign relations and international diplomacy, but would also compromise the prerogatives of the Executive Branch,” Prober wrote in the letter.

Prober, a partner at Akin Gump, co-heads the firm’s congressional investigations division.

His letter, dated Aug. 23 but filed with the Justice Department on Aug. 30, is the latest volley in PIF’s back-and-forth with Blumenthal’s subcommittee over Al-Rumayyan’s potential testimony, as part of an inquiry into the wealth fund’s U.S. investments. The subcommittee launched a probe after the announcement in June that the PIF-financed LIV Golf league and PGA Tour planned to join forces after months of bitter infighting between the two ventures.

LIV Golf Chicago — LIV Golf Series CEO Greg Norman stands with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Governor of Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, at the LIV Golf Series Invitational event in Chicago on Sept. 18, 2022, Rich Harvest Farms in Illinois. (Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press)

According to previous reporting, the Tour sent a six-page document to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, previous to the hearing that outlined the potential framework of the deal. here are some of the main points of the deal:

LIV Golf’s future will be decided by the new entity’s board that will be controlled by a Tour majority.
A “Communications Committee” will be created that will “help facilitate a smooth business transition” and “coordinate and manage communications” between PIF, LIV and the PGA Tour.
The PIF will be “a premier corporate sponsor” of the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and other international tours, and will be a title sponsor for at least one event.
More from the agreement to create a new global golf entity, which they reference as “NewCo:”

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World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler says a lack of clarity on PGA Tour-PIF deal is ‘worrisome’

“They keep saying it’s a player-run organization, and we don’t really have the information that we need.”

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Even before the inevitable questions about the state of his putting, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler was asked to address the latest developments in the PGA Tour-PIF deal following the Tour’s testimony at a Senate Subcommittee hearing Tuesday.

“It always surprises me,” Scheffler said on Wednesday in North Berwick, Scotland ahead of the Genesis Scottish Open of the line of questioning at his press conferences. “Sometimes I feel like we’re going to get asked a lot of LIV Golf questions and they never come, but this time these questions came a little earlier.”

Asked for his reaction to watching Tour executive Ron Price and Policy Board Director Jimmy Dunne answer questions in Washington, D.C., for three hours from several Senators led by Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, Scheffler said, “we didn’t really learn a whole lot, again. As a player on Tour, we still don’t really have a lot of clarity as to what’s going on and that’s a bit worrisome. They keep saying it’s a player-run organization, and we don’t really have the information that we need. I watched part of yesterday and didn’t learn anything. So I really don’t know what to say.”

Scheffler reiterated the company line while also expressing his dismay at how the announcement of the deal was rolled out. “It’s just a framework agreement right now so I don’t know what that entails,” he said. “We are not involved in any of the discussions. None of the players were involved in the original framework agreement, and so we just don’t really.”

Scottie Scheffler hits out of a bunker on the 16th green during a practice round of the U.S. Open golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports

Asked if he should have been involved, Scheffler said, “Probably not. But I’m sure that a few of our players’ members should probably have been involved.”

“I just try to keep my head down and play golf,” he added. “I don’t get too involved in a lot of that stuff. I love playing golf on the PGA Tour and that’s the spot for me. I’m hoping that’s going to exist for a long time. I felt like we were doing a good job before and then the agreement happened and now we have to navigate the whole deal.

“I think the Tour is working hard to try to get us more information but like I said, it’s tough when you’re in negotiations to make everything public. It’s hard to negotiate the public side. I understand the privacy of it but I just wish that definitely our player reps need to be more involved in the process.”

Scheffler was one of the more than 20 top-ranked players that gathered in Delaware last August during the BMW Championship in a meeting organized by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy that led to the commitments to play in 18 designated events with purses ranging from $15 million to $25 million this season. (Only Joaquin Niemann, who attended the meeting, later defected to LIV.) Scheffler was asked if he felt the meeting turned out to be a waste of time.

“I think when the merger announcement, it may have felt like a waste of time but at the end of the day, I think it [was] good to get everybody together,” he said. “I think that we are banded together as players and I think you saw the [Golfweek] article that came out on Patrick [Cantlay] a few weeks ago, and a lot of guys were posting on their social media and stuff like that because it was a ridiculous article.

“That’s what I appreciate as a player is having my voice heard and being able to come to a consensus with all the players and kind of go from there and that’s what we are working towards right now is try to get a consensus. We are a player-run organization, so we are doing our best as players to make it feel that way.”

Scheffler argued that the Tour’s current system of a 16-player advisory council voted on by the membership who pass along the concerns of the players to the five-player directors still works — in theory.

“As long as the player directors’ voices are being heard, we are the ones that put them in that position to be there and we want their voices to be heard, and that was really the only frustration with the original announcement is that none of those four or five guys were involved at all,” Scheffler said. “But as far as how things are going now, there’s open lines of communication. We have had numerous discussions with the Tour officials and players as weeks have gone on with stuff, and I feel like we’re going in the right direction.”

Scheffler did concede that he found it a bit disconcerting that longtime Tour independent director Randall Stephenson, the former CEO and Chairman of AT&T, stepped down from the board last week, stating in a letter that the deal with Saudi Arabia’s PIF “is not one that I can objectively evaluate or in good conscience support.”

“It was a little bit concerning that someone like him wouldn’t be on board. We have players reps and we have other people that are on that advisory board, and any time we lose one of those members is definitely a bit concerning,” Scheffler said. “Those guys are put in position for a reason, and for anyone to leave is tough for us. We’ll see what happens.”

As for his recent putting woes, Scheffler said, “I believe that I’m a very good putter, and everything returns to the average.”

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