PGA TOUR will experience ‘meaningful growth’ from partnership with DP World Tour, PIF

The conversations about how to heal a divided golf world began nearly two months ago. They started with a meeting between PGA TOUR Policy Board member Jimmy Dunne and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan. That initial meeting was the most important one, PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan said, because it set the foundation for Tuesday’s unexpected announcement of a partnership between the PGA TOUR, DP World Tour and PIF.

“They were able to have a discussion about how we work together to grow the game, how we work together to grow the PGA TOUR and to really get an understanding and start building some trust,” Commissioner Monahan said in a Tuesday press conference.

The fruit of those discussions is a development that eased tensions in the golf world while allowing the PGA TOUR to retain its position of strength. The framework agreement closes a contentious year between the TOUR and LIV Golf, bringing all pending litigation between the parties to a mutually-agreed end.

“This ultimately is a decision that I think is in the best interest of all of the members of the PGA TOUR, puts us in a position of control, and allows us to partner with the PIF in a constructive and productive way,” Commissioner Monahan said in a Tuesday evening press conference. “We just realized that we were better off together than we were fighting or apart.”

Where there was once rivalry, there is now unity, as the PGA TOUR, DP World Tour and PIF have in place a framework agreement to form a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity. While the PGA TOUR will retain its 501(c)(6) status, which will allow it to continue its investment into the communities where it plays, this new for-profit entity creates the opportunity for investment that will produce “meaningful growth” for the TOUR.

The PGA TOUR already is in the midst of a period of unprecedented innovation, from how it broadcasts tournaments to the structure of its schedule, and the removal of rivalry only allows for that growth to continue. This year has seen the debut of the Designated events that bring the world’s top players together more often, a model that will only deliver increased excitement in 2024, and broadcast innovations such as in-round interviews with contenders.

“To take the competitor off of the board, to have them exist as a partner, … and for us to be able to control the direction going forward put us in a position as the PGA TOUR to serve our members, and at the same time get to a productive position for the game at large,” Commissioner Monahan said.

He credited the TOUR’s membership for helping to ‘rearchitect’ the TOUR in meaningful ways over the past year. “We are in a control position on their behalf as we move forward in this structure,” he added.

Questions about the future of LIV Golf and its players’ path back to the TOUR will be answered at a later date and after an empirical analysis of the landscape. The agreement includes a “commitment to make a good-faith effort to look at team golf and the role it can play going forward,” Commissioner Monahan said.

Most importantly, it ends a period of unsustainable tension.

“If you look at the values of the game,” Commissioner Monahan said, “I think that's what the situation warranted.”