In an announcement made on Tuesday, the PGA revealed its agreement to merge with LIV Golf, a Saudi-backed league established last year.
If finalized, this merger would bring an end to all ongoing legal disputes between the two parties, thus healing a growing division in men’s professional golf that has significantly reshaped the sport over the past year.
The deal involves the incorporation of the DP World Tour, and all three entities have come together to form a unified, global golf enterprise described as a “new, collectively owned, for-profit entity.”
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Under the proposed agreement, the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund would become the exclusive investor for the yet-to-be-named company. The PGA would hold a majority of the board seats, and Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the wealth fund, would assume the role of chairman. Furthermore, the current PGA Tour Commissioner, Jay Monahan, is set to assume the position of chief executive officer in this new venture.
“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” Monahan said in a statement. “Going forward, fans can be confident that we will, collectively, deliver on the promise we’ve always made — to promote competition of the best in professional golf and that we are committed to securing and driving the game’s future.”
The rift between the PGA and LIV Golf began to surface last summer when the Saudi-backed league enticed prominent players like Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson away from traditional tournaments with enticing cash prizes and insane contracts.
As a result, the PGA responded by imposing sanctions on 17 players who had defected to the new series. It also issued warnings to others who might follow suit, leading nine of the 17 players to proactively resign their PGA membership.
In response to the sanctions, 11 of the suspended players filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the PGA in August, accusing the organization of acting as a monopoly and damaging their professional careers.
Critics of LIV Golf characterized the new league as an example of “sportswashing,” a tactic employed by countries like China and Russia to improve their global image without addressing their contentious human rights records.
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