(WWJ/AP) - The PGA Tour, Live Golf, and DP World Tour are merging to become one entity, creating a commercial operation designed to unify professional golf around the world.
WWJ sports reporter Chris Fillar said the announcement made on Tuesday morning by the PGA -- which puts on the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit later this month -- has effectively "turned the golf work on its head."
"Kind of wild for anybody following the world of golf and the drama that's been going on over the past couple of years with the LIV tour and the PGA tour and the separation and the infighting and the outfighting," Fillar explained. "Well, apparently a bulletin coming out of nowhere this morning, the PGA tour, the LIV tour and the DP World Tour are going to be merging together as one giant new entity."
According to press releases from the PGA tour, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, will join the board of the PGA Tour, which continues to operates its tournaments. Al-Rumayyan will be chairman of the new commercial group, with PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan as the CEO and the PGA Tour having a majority stake in the new venture.
"So the Saudi government and the PGA tour are essentially joining forces in a partnership after doing nothing but bash each other over the past couple of years," Fillar said.
As part of the deal, the sides are dropping all lawsuits involving LIV Golf against each other effective immediately.
"I thought it was a fake article at first," Fillar continued. "It's so insane and the details have yet to come out as exactly how they're going to be doing this."
According to the Associated Press, it is yet to be determined how players like Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, who defected to Saudi-funded LIV Golf for nine-figure bonuses, can rejoin the PGA Tour after this year.
"All of the players that went to the LIV tour... they're going to have a fair chance to regain their PGA TOUR cards after the 2023 season," Fillar said. "This is happening in the middle of the season in June and all of the reporters and everybody that writes about golf is trying to figure out exactly what's going on, but this is a real thing, a real release by the PGA tour."
The agreement combines the Public Investment Fund's golf-related commercial businesses and rights — including LIV Golf — with those of the PGA and European tours. The new entity has not been named.
“They were going down their path, we were going down ours, and after a lot of introspection you realize all this tension in the game is not a good thing,” Monahan said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
“We have a responsibility to our tour and to the game, and we felt like the time was right to have that conversation.”
Also unclear was what form the LIV Golf League would take in 2024. Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a memo to players that a thorough evaluation would determine how to integrate team golf into the game.
As of 11:30 a.m., reaction has exploded on Twitter in response to the news, with golf heavyweights Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Collin Morikawa chiming in:
The PIF will invest in the commercial venture.
Monahan said the decision came together over the last seven weeks.