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DealBook|How a Deal to Shape Golf’s Future Went Cold
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/12/business/dealbook/liv-pga-deal.html
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Just months ago, professional golf seemed to be on the brink of resolving a bitter conflict that had torn the sport apart. The PGA Tour and Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit, rival leagues that had been feuding over stars and audience share for several years, finally submitted a proposal for a deal to the Justice Department.
Golf executives hoped President Trump would help move things along — and the president was confident he could.
“I could probably get it done,” Trump said on the “Let’s Go!” podcast with Bill Belichick and Jim Gray in November. “I would say it would take me the better part of 15 minutes to get that deal done.”
But it is taking a lot longer.
As the Masters Tournament teed off this week at Augusta National, the negotiation has essentially come to a standstill, three people familiar with the talks said.
Despite Trump’s personal interventions — in February, for example, he hosted Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, and Yasir al-Rumayyan, the chairman of LIV and the governor of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, at the White House — the two sides appear at their greatest extremes since June 2023, when they stunned the sports world by announcing a thinly sketched deal that would bring an end to acrimonious litigation.
“I don’t think it’s ever felt that close,” Rory McIlroy, the golfer from Northern Ireland, told reporters last week of those February meetings. “But it doesn’t feel like it’s any closer.”
