AUGUSTA, Ga. — Jon Rahm says he hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about LIV Golf and the PGA Tour coming back together — or at least uniting the best players back on the same stages more often — but he shares the same sentiment as many. “I mean, I think we all would like to see that,” Rahm said during Tuesday’s pre-Masters press conference. “But as far as I can tell, and you guys can tell, it’s not happening anytime soon.”
Rahm, the 2023 Masters champion who left at the end of that calendar year for LIV in a shock announcement, arrives at his ninth Augusta National appearance with a sentiment that seems to be shared by his peers. The optimism surrounding a completed deal between the PGA Tour, the Saudi Public Investment Fund and the DP World Tour has diminished significantly in recent weeks.
Two weeks ago, the PIF initiated correspondence with the PGA Tour regarding a specific proposal with two demands: First, that the governor of the PIF, Yassir Al-Rumayyan be assigned co-chair of the PGA Tour Enterprises board, and second, that LIV continue, The Guardian first reported. These stipulations would be in exchange for an investment worth $1.5 billion from the PIF into the tour’s new for-profit arm, mirroring the $1.5 billion put forth by Strategic Sports Group, a private equity group of American sports owners and moguls.
The PGA Tour rejected that particular proposal in a letter sent March 31. It stands firmly in opposition to the PGA Tour’s publicly stated goal to reunite the best players in the world: “We’re doing everything that we can to bring the two sides together,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said last month.
Said Monahan’s counterpart at LIV Golf, CEO Scot O’Neil: “If the deal can help grow the game of golf I’ll jump in with two feet. Do we have to do a deal? No. It would be nice to do a deal, so long as we’re all focused on the same things.”
While a very small group of players remain deeply involved in the process — Adam Scott and Tiger Woods were part of a meeting in the White House’s Oval Office in February — the majority are on the outside looking in and have little information about their future despite generally wanting the same outcome. The question of how to achieve that outcome and how to integrate two tours that have fundamentally different goals and belief systems remains the largest obstacle.
“We don’t know. No one knows. We all want a solution, and it’s hard to give one,” Rahm said.
As each new season arrives, the effects of the fracture in the game deepen. Because the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) does not recognize LIV events, many of its stars are artificially low in the ranking. Rahm, when asked where he’d rank himself, didn’t even know where he stood — No. 80, down from No. 3 when he left for LIV. He has five consecutive top-5 finishes on LIV this season but is entirely dependent on his finish in the four majors and DP World Tour events for OWGR points.
“A couple weeks to go and I’ll be gone. I mean, I’m not going to say exactly a number, but I would still undoubtedly consider myself a top-10 player in the world. But it’s hard to tell nowadays,” he said.
(Photo: Lauren Sopourn / Getty Images)