PGA Tour and LIV Golf have been at each other’s throats in public for years. But in recent weeks, leaders of the rival golf circuits had been hard at work in secret on a detente.
Yasir Al Rumayyan, the golf-crazy chairman of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund that is LIV’s biggest backer, jetted around the world for several rounds of discussions with top officials from the PGA Tour about a possible combination, according to people familiar with the matter. On Tuesday, his efforts paid off: PGA Tour and LIV announced that they would merge, ending their pitched battle with a shocking truce.
The transaction will create a global golf superpower and bring to an end all outstanding litigation between the two sides. This account of how the deal came together is based on details from multiple people familiar with the discussions, all of whom asked not to be identified discussing private information.
PGA board members Ed Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne initially met with Rumayyan and his associates in London at the end of April, where they talked extensively for the first time about a potential tie-up. A couple of weeks later, the discussions moved to Venice, where Herlihy introduced PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan to Rumayyan. The pair hadn’t previously met in person, one of the people said.
After a final round of meetings at the Four Seasons Hotel and at offices in San Francisco, the deal was signed over the US Memorial Day weekend late last month, one of the people said. It came amid a nearly yearlong legal battle between the two entities that threatened the future of the professional golf industry globally and raised geopolitical concerns.
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