Tiger Woods Joins PGA Tour Board As Players Demand Transparency

Tiger Woods has joined the PGA Tour’s policy board as part of “new transparency and governance measures,” the league announced Tuesday in the aftermath of players feeling blindsided by the Tour’s June merger agreement with Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf.

The PGA Tour announced its new transparent measures one day after 41 top players wrote a letter to Commissioner Jay Monahan demanding that the league add Woods to its board, among other governance changes, reports the Washington Post. 

Woods is now the sixth golfer to join the Tour’s board, joining Patrick Cantlay, Charley Hoffman, Peter Malnati, Rory McIlroy, and Webb Simpson. The addition of Woods is significant because the golfers now outnumber the board’s five independent members from the business world: Ed Herlihy, Jimmy Dunne, Mark Flaherty, Mary Meeker, and John Lindert. However, the board is expected to even out after the Tour picks an independent replacement for Randall Stephenson, the former AT&T chairman who resigned after being left out of the loop of merger negotiations with the Saudis.

“This is a critical point for the tour, and the players will do their best to make certain that any changes that are made in tour operations are in the best interest of all tour stakeholders, including fans, sponsors, and players,” Woods said in a statement. “The players thank Commissioner Monahan for agreeing to address our concerns, and we look forward to being at the table with him to make the right decisions for the future of the game that we all love,” Woods added. “He has my confidence moving forward with these changes.”

Another key sticking point for the players is that their banking adviser Colin Neville, of The Raine Group, is given access to the PGA Tour’s files. At the same time, executives are trying to reach a final merger deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, according to the New York Times.