Lynch: Greg Norman finds himself in a perilous place — he’s outlived his usefulness for the Saudis

Sure, objective reality says Norman has failed to deliver a significant audience, but …

Optics matter in business, and even moreso in our current polarized moment when believing is seeing, when any detail can be twisted in support of a bias we already hold. So it is with Jay Monahan’s compensation, which Sportico reported was just over $23 million in 2023, per PGA Tour tax filings. Nothing turns ardent capitalists into Bernie Bros quite like revelations about executive salaries, and reactions to Jay’s pay didn’t disappoint. Whether Monahan actually deserves that money is a matter for the board that approved his package, and which presumably signed off on the bonus structure that accounts for the bulk of it. But to casual observers, it fits a drearily familiar narrative: people who bear at least some responsibility for the lousy state of golf (chiefly players, with executives a distant second) are earning more than ever while their business woefully underperforms by almost any reasonable metric.

Optics certainly doomed LPGA Tour commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan, who resigned on Monday. She can point to a handful of positives from her three years on the job, but Marcoux Samaan couldn’t shake an unflattering perception that comes with botched logistics, poor relationship maintenance and dithering amid crises.

It would be easy to also cite optics for the reportedly imminent departure of another industry executive — Greg Norman, as CEO of LIV Golf — given his Comical Ali-style bluster in the face of failure that only grows more glaringly obvious with each flip of the calendar. But that would be a disservice to the flaxen-haired finger puppet, who has undeniably been successful in ways that his Saudi benefactors required.

Sure, objective reality says Norman has failed to deliver a significant audience, serious commercial sponsorship or a meaningful media deal for his product. But his dexterity in signing someone else’s checkbook gave LIV the only market share it needed — enough competitively relevant players — and his inability to feel shame made him the ideal frontman to brazen out the initial disgust about sportswashing by authoritarian regimes. But while the Shark imagined himself a visionary, to his bosses he was a mere functionary. Like many a Saudi apparatchik before him, Norman has seemingly outlived his usefulness, though unlike others his severance probably won’t be literal, via bonesaw.

Norman’s eventual ouster will have nothing to do with job performance. It’s simply preparatory for the next phase of the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s golf project. If there is a deal between the PIF and the PGA Tour, Norman is too toxic a personality to lead LIV into whatever cooperative new ecosystem takes shape. And if there isn’t, well, it’s not like he’s been doing an outstanding job anyway. By comparison, his reported replacement, Scott O’Neil, is viewed as a sober and respected sports business leader, a chap without baggage who can work within any new arrangement.

So why would O’Neil take a position that might not exist in a couple of years? Either the pay is sufficient to justify the gamble, or the gig won’t be defunct. Bet on the latter.

Given antitrust concerns — regardless of who occupies the White House — LIV won’t be binned as part of a definitive deal between the PGA Tour and PIF. There will probably come a day when the Saudis cease funding their folly, but that isn’t imminent. So, just as one must offer a chair to the most objectionable family member at Thanksgiving, a place will need to be found for LIV in whatever new reality emerges.

Several scenarios seem feasible. It could continue as a standalone tour; its teams could be folded into a new team golf component on the PGA Tour schedule while LIV’s player contracts fade out; or a combination of both. If a deal is struck and LIV continues as a separate circuit, then it’s likely to do so as an ex-U.S. enterprise, aligned more with the DP World Tour schedule and not competing with the all-important FedEx Cup season. Against that backdrop, consider a Bloomberg report (albeit one dismissed privately by some in Europe) claiming the DP World Tour and LIV are discussing a possible cooperative structure. Such talks would make sense as part of a three-way deal with the PGA Tour. Outside of a trilateral agreement, a LIV-European alliance would pose an existential threat to the PGA Tour. If the Saudis are platformed by a tour with world ranking points, legacy standing and a global presence, what’s to stop every player unafraid of his passport from choosing to compete for huge purses at a select few DP World Tour stops?

In the absence of clarity in PGA Tour-PIF negotiations, everything is presumably on the table.

The continued existence of LIV isn’t the ultimate prize for PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan. He wants access to team franchises with real value in the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL when rules are eventually loosened on sovereign wealth funds buying ownership stakes. It’s not difficult to see how Al-Rumayyan and the PGA Tour’s existing investors in Strategic Sports Group are incentivized to be in business together. Greg’s dream is merely Yasir’s vehicle. In time, LIV will be viewed as no more than an inconvenient junk asset that needs to be parked until it is finally shuttered.

But optics also matter a great deal to Al-Rumayyan. For now, someone has to spare his blushes over having flushed several billion dollars on a farce. Someone has to facilitate a respectable disengagement over time from the LIV debacle. Someone has to provide an alternative avenue for his ambitions in golf. That someone is apparently Monahan, who finds himself having to simultaneously hold together a fractured boardroom, an underachieving organization and grousing members long enough to build Al-Rumayyan’s off-ramp. Perhaps he’s actually earning his money after all.

Opinion: In selfish age, Trump and golf will get on like a White House on fire

It doesn’t matter how we get what we want, as long as we get it.

My dearly departed colleague and mentor, Jock MacVicar, was a tremendous creature of habit.

Most Sundays, for instance, he would toddle off to his local driving range to hit 50 balls. “It’s just a bit of exercise,” he reasoned, but the true motivation behind his routine was the fact that the café at said facility produced terrific scones.

Jock loved his grub. The rampant devouring of a quite delightful lemon meringue pie at the Sleive Donard Hotel in County Down during an Amateur Championship one year could’ve been accompanied by the triumphant finale of the William Tell Overture.

While a bucket of 50 balls would always be more than enough for Jock – the scone was probably calling after 22 dimpled orbs had been gently swept off the mat to be honest – I prefer to arm myself with a haul of 100.

The reason? Well, it’s purely down to simple mathematics. It adds up to the same number of separate, negative thoughts that course through my feeble mind during the swing.

I don’t know why I actually keep going back to the range. But, for whatever reason, I still do. As Churchill once observed, “success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Perhaps he too was driven on by the prospect of a scone?

In this game, there’s always food for thought. With the wider world girding its various bits and pieces for the onset of another Donald Trump presidency, the world of golf was left mulling over the impact another Trump term will have on merger talks involving the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund that fuels the LIV gravy train.

Lynch: Rory McIlroy should have answered the Donald Trump question with a shrug. But he didn’t

Forget the trivialities of global conflict and issues surrounding national security, immigration, the climate or the cost of living. Just how will men’s professional golf benefit from Trump’s return? Who said the game in its upper echelons was out of touch with the real world, eh?

Rory McIlroy, as honest as ever, gave his opinions last week in Abu Dhabi as he mulled over the prospect of Trump accelerating the wearisome discussions of the 2023 Framework Agreement.

And don’t worry, I find that phrase boring too. In fact, I just let out a gaping yawn right there, halfway through typing the word ‘Framework.’

Anyway, the influence golf-loving Trump can exert over the U.S. Department of Justice – it has threatened to block any merger on the basis that it would violate competition law – is being viewed as something of a breakthrough in the current impasse.

“Given the news with what’s happened in America, I think that (Trump’s win) clears the way a little bit,” suggested McIlroy about the route towards this tripartite coalition. He also flung in – with a smile we must add – the prospect of madcap MAGA flag-waver Elon Musk getting involved too. Crikey.

Trump trumpeted last week that he would take about “15 minutes” to get the golf deal done. Whether he does it before or after the 24 hours he said it would take him to sort out the war in Ukraine remains to be seen.

Donald Trump, Eric Trump and Larry Glick of Trump Resort greet golfers on the practice green before the final round of 2024 LIV Golf Miami at Trump National Doral. (Photo: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports)

When that aforementioned Framework thingamajig was unveiled some 18 months ago, Trump roared that it was a “big, beautiful and glamourous deal for the wonderful world of golf.”

Meanwhile, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan hailed a potential union with the Saudis as a “momentous day.”

Up until that June 2023 announcement, which was so out of the blue even the blue itself was caught on the hop, Monahan was very much against the Saudi golf revolution and even used the victims of the 9/11 atrocity to effectively shame those American players who had defected to the breakaway series.

Monahan’s subsequent volte-face was quite something as he backed out of his robust anti-LIV stance with about as much elegance as a man reversing his car into the entire peloton of the Tour de France.

It was just one of the many flabbergasting developments in an ongoing saga that has been defined by eye-popping sentiments, greed, entitlement and players demonstrating an over-inflated sense of their own worth.

McIlroy has hardly rolled out the welcome mat for Trump, and the Northern Irishman has been a great statesman-like figure in the game’s civil war over the last couple of turbulent years.

In many quarters, though, his statements last week were viewed as just another example of the blinkered, privileged and selfish bubble that golfers at the highest level exist in these days.

It doesn’t matter how we get what we want, as long as we get it.

It seems Trump and golf will continue to get on like a White House on fire.

Nick Rodger is the golf contributor and columnist for the Scotland Herald, which is owned by Gannett/Newsquest.

Lynch: Rory McIlroy should have answered the Donald Trump question with a shrug. But he didn’t

What has made McIlroy likable is the sense that he has a sense of the world outside of his privileged bubble.

The first Wednesday of November during leap years is a perilous time for public commentary as U.S. Presidential election results are debated in a manner just as partisan as the campaign that preceded it. This one is no different. Depending on whom you ask, one political party peddled faux populism and racism while displaying an astonishing appetite for conspiracy theories, while the other is woefully incapacitated by its indulgence of identity ideologues, Hamas groupies and gender jihadists. Which is to say there was already plenty to pick over without wondering if the election of Donald Trump would help professional golfers get paid more.

During a Wednesday press conference at a tournament in Abu Dhabi, Rory McIlroy was asked about progress in talks between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. “Given today’s news with what has happened in America, I think that clears the way a little bit. So we’ll see,” he offered, before adding that it would be “a huge moment” if the Department of Justice under Trump was more amenable to green-lighting a deal than Biden’s DOJ might have been.

In our hyper-polarized moment, even comments that are both bland and obvious can be construed as endorsing the election outcome, something McIlroy didn’t actually do. But those three words — “clears the way” — earned a pointedly sour reception. McIlroy gave the impression of welcoming the prospect of Trump interfering with a regulatory process to benefit a coddled group of golfers who’ve already alienated legions of fans weary of their entitlement and greed.

A few days ago, Trump claimed he could solve the PGA Tour-PIF dispute “in 15 minutes,” which at least acknowledges that it’s a more mundane matter than the Ukraine war, which he said he’d need 24 hours to end. “He might be able to,” McIlroy said in response. “He’s got Elon Musk, who I think is the smartest man in the world, beside him. We might be able to do something if we can get Musk involved, too.”

Even leaving aside the generous encomium for Musk, who has spent months amplifying racists and antisemites in his social media sewer, McIlroy knows better — a fact he quickly admitted. “I think from the outside looking in, it’s probably a little less complicated than it actually is. But obviously, Trump has a great relationship with Saudi Arabia. He’s got a great relationship with golf. He’s a lover of golf. So, maybe. Who knows? But I think as the president of the United States again, he’s probably got bigger things to focus on than golf.”

“A great relationship” is one way to describe a $2 billion Saudi donation to a hedge fund run by Trump’s son-in-law, but at least McIlroy’s last observation is beyond debate. Executives on both sides of this negotiation will know what impact, if any, the election will have. And if either has slow-played things to see if the review process is less aggressive under a Trump administration, they now have a date on which they’ll find out. But those are questions Jay Monahan gets paid handsomely to answer, not McIlroy.

Instead, what McIlroy inadvertently did was reinforce a widespread perception of myopic entitlement among Tour players. Millions of people awoke this morning with leaden uncertainty about things that actually matter — economic stability, support in times of war, global alliances, civil rights, basic healthcare, immigration status. That environment is sufficiently fraught without a golfer idly speculating on whether the election might be a treat for those impatient to get their hands on some Saudi riyal.

Anyone who has paid attention to the narrative in golf these past few years is probably immune to surprise at hearing such sentiments expressed, but this example will be jarring because of where the comments originated.

What has always made McIlroy likable is the sense that he has peripheral vision, a sense of the world and its issues outside of his privileged bubble. But that image took a hit Wednesday, overshadowed by the feeling that everyone now just has ‘PIF vision,’ that even he sounds like just another voice in a chorus asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’

That’s an unfair characterization of a man who has proven more thoughtful than most of his peers, but McIlroy has been around this thorny issue for a long time, and around divisive politics since childhood. He knows there are some questions that are best answered with a shrug and a ‘your guess is as good as mine’ deflection. This was obviously one of those.

Yet he chose to do what he always does in press conferences (not always wisely): answer the question he was asked. In this instance, on this day, he ought to have taken a lead from his late compatriot, Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney: “Whatever you say, you say nothing.”

Lynch: A PGA Tour-Saudi deal is closer, but opportunists will have time to take advantage while real fans wait

Even if deal terms emerge in the coming weeks, a long and bumpy road lies ahead.

“There are four types of men in the world: lovers, opportunists, lookers-on and imbeciles,” wrote the 19th-century French philosopher Hippolyte Taine. “The happiest are the imbeciles.” All are well represented in the chaos prevailing in men’s professional golf.

The imbeciles — usually more irate than happy — can be found in the drool-speckled ranks of LIV Golf’s social media trolls, but not exclusively. How else to explain a decision to hold the most recent meeting between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund in New York City on September 11? PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan wasn’t present, and so didn’t face the fraught question of whether to attend the 9/11 memorial ceremony that his government contributed so much to bringing about.

What of the lovers, opportunists and lookers-on?

The latter is the largest group, the PGA Tour’s journeymen, veterans and staff who aren’t deemed important enough to be updated on matters that will greatly impact their working lives. (There’s arguably a subcategory of lookers-away, former fans who are disengaging from golf, due at least in part to the division and diluted product.) Opportunists, meanwhile, are laboring to exhaustion.

Strategic Sports Group has been opportunistic — not in the pejorative sense — by investing $1.5 billion in a sport that is under-leveraged. The Saudis too, by identifying what makes golf penetrable for sportswashing: players who don’t have contracts but do have a delusional notion of their market worth. The DP World Tour can also be included. It benefitted from a lucrative alliance when the PGA Tour needed to scope the rising Saudi tide, and now does little to quash speculation that it might be an alternative for the PIF if a deal isn’t reached with the Americans. And of course, Greg Norman, who finally roped a dope willing to finance his grievances, and whose insistence that LIV is thriving has as much credibility as tales of canine suppers in Springfield, Ohio.

But none have been more opportunistic than PGA Tour golfers. They’ve secured previously unimaginable pay for working in an underperforming product, grabbed control in a governance shakeup amid the aftershocks of the Framework Agreement, and are playing power games by creating their own marketing events, safe in the knowledge that the Tour lacks the leverage over members that it enjoyed during the imperial commissariat of Tim Finchem.

The game is ripe with the stench of every man for himself.

So what of the lovers? That’s you, golf fans. And right now, the thing you love is making it awfully tough to maintain your affection, even for those who aren’t overly troubled by the prospect of Saudi investment being mainstreamed. How long before a new normal is established and the political and economic narratives diminish in this sport?

Talk to enough people familiar with the state of negotiations between the PGA Tour and the PIF and it’s clear progress is happening, but uncertainty remains. Not least the timeframe governing a Department of Justice review of any agreement. Assuming that the presidential election doesn’t lead to a stubby Cheeto thumb being placed on the scale, that process could take more than a year. In hopes of hastening it, the Tour has constantly updated Justice officials on what they’re considering and addressed any concerns raised. But it’s unclear if the parties could seek some manner of preliminary green light from the DOJ in advance of an announcement, nor even how detailed deal terms must be to pass muster. Two things can be assured: players will not go backward on what they’re earning and LIV will be repackaged rather than retired, since regulators would likely see the alternatives as anticompetitive.

Despite Rory McIlroy’s public suggestion that the onus is on PGA Tour officials to get moving, it’s the PIF that will most impact whether a deal is realized. A Justice Department review will almost certainly involve requests for discovery materials similar to those the Saudis refused to submit during antitrust litigation, and which they’ve declined to hand over to a U.S. Senate committee for a year. Sources close to the negotiations say there’s clear intent by the PIF to avoid establishing a transparency precedent that might shine a light on its other investments in the U.S., known and stealth. So what level of compliance will prove sufficient for the U.S. government? It won’t get 100 percent, but how far shy of that will it settle for?

Which is to say that even if deal terms emerge in the coming weeks — not implausible, based on people I’ve talked to — a long and bumpy road lies ahead. Which promises to leave lovers waiting, imbeciles slabbering and lookers-on idling, all while giving opportunists more time to better angle themselves to the trough.

Who ends up shortchanged with the lack of PGA Tour-PIF information? Just the fans

By not answering questions about the split and efforts to reunite men’s golf, Monahan adds to the frustration.

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan delivered his annual State of the Tour address Wednesday before the first round of the Tour Championship, the season-ending event in Atlanta.

Monahan talked about innovations the Tour is making in production of Tour events, talked about players being more engaged as equity in the Tour and how strong the Tour’s schedule is with a balance of signature events and full-field events.

But the question that many golf fans wanted answered remained unanswered: When is men’s professional golf going to be united again after two years of the split between the PGA Tour and the LIV Tour?

It’s not that reporters didn’t ask plenty of questions about how negotiations are going with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. It’s not like reporters didn’t ask about what negotiations are taking place 15 months after the initial announcement of a framework agreement with the PIF, if there is a deadline for negotiations or if the Tour has decided on a path for players to return from the LIV Tour if their contracts with the PIF come to an end. It’s just that tour officials provided no answers to those questions.

Monahan and those around him simply skirted the issue, mostly falling back on the idea of not wanting to negotiate in public and saying that the negotiations are complex and will proceed at their own pace. Those answers might be fine for a boardroom, but it is not great when you are trying to convince fans to continue to watch a product that is not as strong as it was a year ago.

The Tour might dispute that statement, but then again the Tour a year ago had Jon Rahm as a member before he moved to LIV. Bryson DeChambeau isn’t on the PGA Tour anymore, either, and he happens to have won the U.S. Open in June. The PGA Tour has elite players who are having terrific years, like Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Rory McIlroy. But the Tour would be stronger with Rahm and DeChambeau and maybe one or two other LIV players.

Fans need more information

I still run into people who say they are far less interested in the PGA Tour since the split with LIV that started in 2023. Too many people are still saying they watch less golf than they have in the past. They are not watching LIV golf, either, if you believe the minuscule television ratings for that tour. One or two people I talk to say they just don’t watch PGA Tour golf at all anymore, limiting their viewing to the major championships. Ratings for PGA Tour events seemed to crater early in the year but have rallied this summer. That still doesn’t mean the Tour is thriving with some fans after the LIV split.

By not answering questions about the split and efforts to reunite men’s golf, Monahan adds to the frustration of some fans. Most fans don’t care about tour equity ownership for the golfers or increased purses or changes in title sponsors. They do care about which golfers are playing in a given week. Monahan and his staff did nothing to clear any of that up.

It’s possible that the PGA Tour is burning the midnight oil in negotiations, that emails and text messages are flying back and forth between Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. and Saudi Arabia. It’s possible that the PGA Tour in 2026 – it’s likely too late for changes in 2025 – is being shaped right now.

But the fans can’t know that without better answers than, “We don’t want to negotiate in public.” And the fans deserve at least some information about where their sport is headed, at least if the fans are being asked to continue their allegiance to the sport. Fans might not be investing money into the tour like the Strategic Sports Group or the title sponsors of each tournament. But they are being asked to invest their time in watching the sport and their emotions in rooting for top players.

The PGA Tour needs to pay off that investment with more detailed information about the future of the sport.

Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Sun.

Lynch: Jay Monahan won’t talk about a Saudi deal, but one comment showed how things have shifted in his favor

Jay Monahan’s groundhog days lack lobster, piña coladas and escapades worthy of frisky marine mammals.

ATLANTA — ”I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank piña coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters,” Bill Murray rants about the repetitiveness of his existence in the movie “Groundhog Day.” “That was a pretty good day. Why couldn’t I get that day over and over and over?”

Jay Monahan’s groundhog days also lack lobster, piña coladas and escapades worthy of frisky marine mammals. Instead, his involve press conferences in which he repeatedly declines to answer questions about the one subject folks wish to hear from him on: the state of negotiations with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. Wednesday brought another of those at East Lake Golf Club during the commissioner’s press briefing at the Tour Championship, the transcript of which will show considerable overlap with his last one, at the Players Championship in March, and with his appearance here last year. That Monahan has actually offered more detail on the talks than his PIF counterpart, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, counts for naught since MBS’s bag man doesn’t make himself available for questions and is held to different standards in many matters, not least transparency and accountability.

There were several topics Monahan was eager to discuss — his themes were “engagement, momentum and innovation” — but the focus was, predictably, on what he didn’t say. Or more accurately, what he wouldn’t say.

“As it relates to any details of the conversations that we’re having with the Public Investment Fund, I’m not going to disclose details. I’m not going to get into specifics.”

“I’m not going to negotiate details in public or disclose details or specifics. All I can say is that conversations continue, and they’re productive.”

“When you get into productive conversations, that enhances the likelihood of positive outcomes, and that enhances the spirit of those very conversations. I think that’s where things stand.”

The fact that Monahan won’t talk doesn’t mean there isn’t something to talk about. There’s a difference between being evasive and simply not being expansive. Sources familiar with the current state of the PIF discussions suggest there’s occasional activity but that any particulars are being laboriously lawyered. It’s also apparent that Monahan concerns himself with just one constituency: the Tour’s Policy Board, or more specifically, the player-directors on that body. He knows that unilateral decisions are beyond his remit as commissioner thanks to the trilateral commission that created the controversial Framework Agreement. He’s clearly uninterested in the two precincts most vocal about wanting to see action on a deal: golf media (thirsty for new material), and LIV players (desperate to be insulated from the consequences of their decisions).

That Monahan isn’t hearing a clamor for progress from his own members indicates how the balance of power has subtly shifted in the Tour’s favor.

Conventional wisdom has long held that a delay in reaching a deal is disadvantageous to the Tour, that time allows LIV more opportunity to poach players, that time bleeds out the Tour’s product, that time amplifies discontent among fans, sponsors and partners.

But one comment that passed largely unnoticed in Monahan’s prepared remarks hinted at a shifting reality. “We now have the structure and the resources we need to define the future of professional golf on our terms and the significant support of a world-class group of investors,” he said, referring to Strategic Sports Group, which injected $1.5 billion into the Tour in January.

Humorist Will Rogers once described diplomacy as the art of saying “nice doggie” until you find a rock. In SSG, Monahan found his rock. It provided him something the Tour didn’t have a year ago: $1.5 billion worth of options.

To be sure, there are weeks when the PGA Tour’s product struggles to breathe, but by comparison, LIV’s is in hospice care. It has an audience that could be comfortably accommodated in one of East Lake’s hospitality suites (as long as there’s wifi for online trolling), zero market traction, expensive contract renewals looming, all while being hostage to capricious internal politics in Riyadh. Monahan can be forgiven for thinking his hand is strengthened as time passes.

Only when a PIF deal is announced does the clock start ticking on the inevitable and time-consuming Department of Justice review as to whether it’s anti-competitive. Monahan must know that the DOJ will almost certainly demand PIF turn over the same discovery materials it refused to submit during the original antitrust litigation against the PGA Tour, and which it won’t give to a U.S. Senate subcommittee. Why would the Tour break into a sprint when running a marathon in which its only competitor has more hurdles and potholes to navigate?

For all the times he chose to remain circumspect today on the prospects of a deal, Monahan gamely tried to lay out a vision for the Tour’s future. There’s a plan to address fan frustrations (though it’s not readily apparent how he can or will ameliorate broadcaster angst over ratings slumps). It remains to be seen what improvements or innovations his “Fan Forward” strategy will actually deliver, but its existence at least signals awareness that the Tour’s most pissed-off constituency is being heard, something Monahan promised to address back in March.

“We’re moving forward at speed and focused on what we can control, because that’s what we owe to our fans,” the commish said.

He didn’t announce $1.5 billion worth of innovation though, which raises intriguing questions about the Tour’s future ambitions or acquisitions with its nest egg. That too would be a sensitive subject, and questions he probably plans to leave unanswered at his next “State of the Tour” press conference, seven months from now.

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.