PGA Tour Boss Said He Trusted Saudi Leader '10 Minutes After Sitting Down With Him' as Deal Was Hammered Out

The merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf was two months in the making according to the Financial Times.

While a majority if not all PGA Tour players were unaware, commissioner Jay Monahan was in talks with the Public Investment Fund for more than two months in an effort to work out a deal that was announced Tuesday as a merger with the LIV Golf League and the DP World Tour.

The Financial Times, which along with CNBC, were first given news of the deal by the PGA Tour, reported that the PIF—Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and the backer of LIV Golf—will be the exclusive outside minority investor in a new, to-be-named joint commercial entity that will include the LIV team concept.

Details are still to be worked out, but the Financial Times said two months of meetings between the PGA Tour and the PIF occurred across the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

Monahan, who has repeatedly said he would not speak to PIF representatives and pushed the Tour’s “legacy," told the Financial Times that he began to trust the PIF’s Yasir Al-Rumayyan “10 minutes after sitting down with him in Venice."

Al-Ramayyan, 53, is the governor of the PIF. He is also the chairman of Saudi Aramco, the oil company that funds several Ladies European Tour events, as well as the chairman of Newcastle United, a Premier League football club that has majority PIF ownership.

The PIF is said to have more than $650 billion worth of assets and invests in numerous U.S. companies, including FedEx, which is the biggest supporter of the PGA Tour.