PGA Tour Players Have Power to Shape the Deal With LIV Golf’s Backers. Here’s How They Could Do It.

There are more questions than answers to the alliance of the Tour with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and Michael Rosenberg explains how that’s good for players.

The PGA Tour’s Policy Board is scheduled to meet this week in Detroit, and if players still have more questions than answers about the Tour’s deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, they should realize: That’s good. It means there is a lot to be determined—and they can help determine it.

Tour commissioner Jay Monahan stunned his players with his PIF deal, and of course they were mad and assumed the worst. The Tour’s awful messaging did not help. But while the original agreement was a secret known to only a few, the rest of the process should be open and inclusive. Players should be able to shape this agreement, as long as they abide by the broad framework of the deal Monahan struck: The Tour will control elite men’s professional golf, and the Saudis will be investment partners.

The idea is simple and should appeal to players: The PGA Tour solidifies its standing as the dominant circuit, controlled by players and a commissioner who answers to them, while PIF infuses the Tour with money. But the details are tricky and crucial.

The Tour is trying to thread several needles at once. It is trying to tap into Saudi money without ceding power to Saudi interests. It is trying to swallow LIV in some form—but that means bringing LIV players back under its umbrella, which would naturally upset PGA Tour players who resisted LIV a year ago. The Tour then needs to satisfy its own players with a financial bounty, but at the moment, it has a commitment of zero dollars from PIF. Oh, and the Tour is also trying to unite golf, and trumpet that publicly while convincing regulators there are no antitrust concerns.

Yeah, there is a lot going on here. But it can work if the key parties all want it to work. Those parties are: Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who controls PIF’s billions; PGA Tour players; and any legal authority that would have to approve the merger.

Tour players can scream about Monahan’s betrayal and try to scuttle the deal. But where would that leave them? Their legal bills would be much lower than they have been; LIV and the Tour dismissed their cases “with prejudice,” meaning they cannot bring them to court again, even if this deal falls apart. But Al-Rumayyan would still want to be involved in golf. He would probably double down on making LIV work.

The players could object to any involvement with the Saudi government on principle. I understand and respect the moral argument there. It’s just highly unlikely at this point.

The most likely and logical solution: Players help shape the agreement in a way that works for them—not just now but a generation from now. This would include:

1. Some kind of formula that funnels more money to players who stayed, along with some kind of penalty for those who left. This might require PIF to put an up-front dollar guarantee on its investment. But it could also mean—this is just one idea—a clause saying LIV players can apply for reinstatement when PIF’s contribution to the Tour’s investment fund hits a certain dollar figure. Then LIV players would be ineligible to benefit from that fund for a certain period of time.

2. A clear organizational structure ensuring what most players have always said and believed: The Tour is a player-run organization. The Tour already has bylaws. The preliminary agreement gives the Tour the power to control its operations—nobody has disputed that. The key is making sure that it retains that power. That means clearly defined rules about how a commissioner and board members are chosen. The time to avoid a slippery slope is now.

3. Guardrails to protect the Tour against becoming what critics (myself included) have called LIV: a sportswashing tool for the Saudi government. There was never a sensible business plan for LIV besides sportswashing. If PIF wants to be an investment partner for the Tour, and Tour players are comfortable with that, they should also try to stop Saudi Arabia from using the Tour to distort its human rights record.

This is a hard thing to ensure. (One could also argue that any involvement with the Saudis is sportswashing.) The fear is that down the road, the Saudis start attaching unpalatable conditions to any investment. Players should address that proactively now. If this deal leads to Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud handing a trophy to whoever wins the Tour Championship and the Aramco (né FedEx) Cup, then Monahan and the players have failed.

There would be many more issues to address. But it is important to remember that, for all the uncertainty, Tour players have a vote; LIV players do not. They might think they do. The public might assume they do. But Al-Rumayyan has already agreed to the preliminary deal, and he did it, one presumes, because he wants this to happen.

A lot of people seem to think Al-Rumayyan is determined to see LIV succeed as its own entity, and he certainly may prefer that. But if LIV’s success was his top priority, why would he strike a deal that gives the Tour power over LIV? I don’t care whether Al-Rumayyan told LIV stars they will have a season in 2024, as Dustin Johnson and others have said he did. Those are just words—and Johnson, who said he was “fully committed” to the PGA Tour less than four months before leaving, should know as well as anyone how little those words mean.

Al-Rumayyan’s actions indicate that he wants, above all, to invest PIF money in the world of golf. LIV was a means to that end. If LIV golfers assumed the Saudi Arabia government had their back, maybe they should have Googled “Saudi Arabian government” before signing with LIV.

The pressure is now on the agents who convinced players that jumping to LIV was a smart business move. Those agents now have to lean on Al-Rumayyan and his underlings to take care of the players he signed.

The best-case scenario for LIV players goes like this: Al-Rumayyan withholds any investment money until the PGA Tour agrees to allow LIV players to return. PGA Tour players refuse to approve the deal until Al-Rumayyan guarantees a minimum investment. The pressure would then be on Monahan (assuming he returns from his health-related leave of absence) to strike a subdeal with Al-Rumayyan that satisfies Tour and LIV players.

The problem is that LIV golfers don’t have leverage over Al-Rumayyan. They will need him to put their interests above his own just because he is a golf nut who wants great players to like him. LIV players thought they had more power than they do.

The PGA Tour botched the rollout so badly that it made a hard job—completing this deal—even harder. But there is a path forward. Players felt like Monahan stripped them of power. In fact, he gave them power. He essentially handed them a contract with a favorable structure and a bunch of blank pages. Now it’s time to hand them the pen.