The last two years have been very confusing from a professional golf perspective.
Friday marked the two-year anniversary of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf seemingly putting an end to what was the most awkward time before this one. It was then, on June 6th, 2023, that Jay Monahan and Yasir Al-Rumayyan announced what seemed to be an upcoming merger between the two golf entities that had been feuding at that point for some time.
The message sold was that there would soon be a global entity that professional golf would live and operate under. It may seem hard to remember now, but this news was incredibly volatile at the time as there was still a heavy divide relative to the subject of LIV Golf’s existence in general. That the PGA Tour was going to be merging with them seemed impossible, but that it has been two years since without any new information is ultimately what no one could have predicted.
Consider that half a year after this framework agreement was announced that Jon Rahm, then the reigning Masters Champion, agreed to join LIV. There have been few players to join since, Josele Ballester actually did so this week, as the game at large has lived under this umbrella of ambiguity.
It seems that nobody has any clue if or when any actual merger is going to happen. Both tours have kept on existing and moving, they both have events this week in the lead up to the U.S. Open, and another golf property has emerged with stars from the PGA Tour in TGL. Golf is scattered professionally to say the least.
This is one of those things that is difficult to explain to anyone who doesn’t have any idea what is going on, but that is the case because the most important people at the center of it have offered little to no details. Consider that this has been true for two years now as noted.
What does the future of professional golf look like? We have literally been asking this question in this specific sense for two years now.
An answer soon feels unlikely to say the least.
