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Friday, February 21, 2025

Trump Meets With PGA Tour, PIF Again to Iron Out LIV Golf Deal

Trump could be the key to finally getting a deal done between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which funds LIV Golf.

Nov 16, 2024; New York, NY, USA; Saudi businessman Yasir Al-Rumayyan (left) talks to president-elect Donald Trump during UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden.
Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Another PGA Tour–LIV Golf meeting is taking place Thursday in Washington, D.C. 

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Tiger Woods, and fellow PGA Tour policy board player director Adam Scott are meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House, as first reported by Golfweek and ESPN.

The meeting comes roughly two weeks after Monahan and Scott met with Trump at the White House to discuss the potential deal for the PIF, which funds LIV, to invest in the PGA Tour’s commercial operations. Al-Rumayyan reportedly joined that meeting via telephone, according to the New York Times.

“We know golf fans are eagerly anticipating a resolution to negotiations with the Public Investment Fund and want to thank President Trump for his interest and long-time support of the game of golf,” a PGA Tour statement on Feb. 6 read. “We asked the President to get involved for the good of the game, the good of the country, and for all the countries involved. We are grateful that his leadership has brought us closer to a final deal, paving the way for reunification of men’s professional golf.”

LIV players are currently not allowed to compete in PGA Tour events, so players from both tours typically only play together at the four major championships or smaller international tournaments.

The PIF is considering acquiring a minority stake in PGA Tour Enterprises—the for-profit entity founded last year that has already received a $1.5 billion investment from a consortium of U.S. sports team owners, the Strategic Sports Group, that could double to $3 billion eventually.

But antitrust concerns have surrounded a theoretical PGA Tour–LIV Golf merger, or any deal with the PIF, since the infamous framework agreement to reunify men’s professional golf was announced on June 6, 2023. However, the Department of Justice under the Trump Administration is expected to be more merger-friendly than under former President Joe Biden.

Before Trump was elected, he said he could get a PGA Tour–PIF deal done in “the better part of 15 minutes.” LIV has played at Trump-owned courses in each of its first three seasons, and will play its first U.S. event of the league’s 2025 schedule at Trump National Doral in Miami in April.

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