PGA Tour and LIV Golf End Legal Fight, Announce Merger

Article ByKyle Garlett

June 6, 2023

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Posted in: US Sports Betting News, US Gambling News

On Tuesday, the biggest players in men’s professional golf announced a historic merger, as the PGA Tour and LIV Golf have agreed to end their pending litigation and move forward as a single for-profit entity.

The agreement was announced just four days after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the PGA Tour’s motion to dismiss an appeal. That request was filed by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the financial entity that backs LIV Golf.

In that appeal, the fund and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, claimed sovereign immunity, and thus they weren’t subject to discovery.

That legal fight is now all in the past, as the PGA Tour, along with the DP World Tour (European PGA Tour) is joining forces with LIV Golf, the tour that it once sought to marginalize.

This is a huge win for LIV, who all along claimed their creation was simply to change the monetary structure of golf, and change the type of competitions that professional golf engaged in. It’s also a big win for the golfers who joined LIV and were then kicked out of the PGA. As part of the agreement, the formerly competing tours will have “a fair and objective process for any players who want to re-apply for membership with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour.”

That reinstatement can happen as soon as the 2023 season has been completed.

In announcing the merger, the PGA said in a statement that the agreement “combines PIF’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf) with the commercial businesses and rights of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity to ensure that all stakeholders benefit from a model that delivers maximum excitement and competition among the game’s best players.”

Exactly what that excitement will look like has yet to be announced, and neither has the new name of this new professional golfing entity. But we do know that PIF will invest billions of new capital into the new entity to “grow these combined commercial businesses, drive greater fan engagement, and accelerate growth initiatives already underway.”

The Board of Directors of the new entity will include Al-Rumayyan as the Chairman and PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan as the CEO.

Healing the Golfer Rift

The crack that formed between golfers when LIV Golf was created two years ago was a storyline that followed both tours and any event that included players from both tours. Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, and Brooks Koepka opted to move to LIV and the guaranteed money that it offered.

Rory McIlroy and Tigers Woods were very vocal in their support of the PGA Tour, and publicly questioned the lack of competition in LIV.

Koepka recently won the PGA Championship, and next week the golf world comes together again for the U.S. Open. On Monday, four LIV golfers won qualifiers to get into the U.S. Open, with the most notable being Sergio Garcia. That means a total of 15 golfers from LIV Golf are now scheduled to compete at the Los Angeles Country Club beginning on June 15.

For The Masters, there were 18 LIV golfers eligible to play, and 17 who played at the PGA Championship three weeks ago.

The name of the new golf entity, as well as how it’s structured, isn’t expected to be finalized for several weeks.