It seems as if the PGA Tour and LIV Golf are closer to joining forces than ever before.
Yet, Adam Scott, one of the six Directors on the Player Advisory Council (PAC), says that some players may express bitterness over a deal and hold grudges against those who defected to the Saudi-backed circuit altogether.
“I wouldn’t be surprised — or I wouldn’t judge anyone, the members — if reunification happened and they weren’t happy with how it happened,” Scott said to ESPN.
“I wouldn’t hold it against anybody if there were negative emotions attached to it, the thought of players coming back.”
On Feb. 4, Scott, along with PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, visited President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss the PGA Tour’s future and the pending deal with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), LIV Golf’s beneficiary.
“It was great. It was a very productive visit,” Monahan said at the Genesis Invitational about their meeting in Washington.
“For him to respond to our request to sit down and talk about how we achieve what he stated publicly as a goal, which is the game of golf operating under one tour with all the top players playing on that one tour, was a great opportunity. We had a really productive conversation.”
Monahan added that “one tour” means the “reunification of the game.”
“When you talk about reunification, that’s all the best players in the world competing with each other and against each other,” Monahan said.
Scott agreed that this approach is “the only way forward,” per ESPN.
“But it’s not solely the tour’s decision, you know what I mean?” Scott added.
“There’s two people in this discussion, more to be honest — the DP World Tour, a lot of other stakeholders in the pro game. The tour and its representatives talk a lot about it. But we’re not in control of the entire situation. There’s another side to the story. It’s not been an easy thing to solve, otherwise we’d have solved it, I believe.”
An agreement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and the PIF is undoubtedly complicated, which explains why all involved have taken nearly two years to sort out a deal. Throw in the PGA Tour receiving a substantial investment from the Strategic Sports Group (SSG) in February 2024, and everything surrounding this deal became more complex.
“I’ll be honest, it took a couple of months to wrap my head around stuff. Within the first few weeks of me coming on the board, we’re voting for a minority shareholder to take equity in the tour. There aren’t easy answers to any of this stuff. Everyone is entitled to feel something about what’s happened,” Scott explained.
“The one thing I do know is we’re not going to please everyone, but everyone should know that I will stand behind these player directors. They’re trying to do the best thing for the entire membership. They’ve been faced with some tough decisions the last two years — tough calls, big consequences — for whatever we vote on.”
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.
