PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and participant administrators from the tour’s coverage board met with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund, within the Bahamas on Monday, a gathering that might be an necessary step in reuniting males’s skilled golf.
On Monday, X accounts tracked planes owned by the PGA Tour, the PIF and participant director Tiger Woods (in addition to the 15-time main champion’s yacht) to Nassau, Bahamas. A aircraft owned by Fenway Sports activities Group principal proprietor John Henry, who owns the Boston Crimson Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins and Liverpool FC, additionally arrived within the Bahamas on Monday.
Monahan despatched a memo to PGA Tour members Monday evening, confirming the assembly however providing few particulars. Golfers Webb Simpson, Jordan Spieth, Peter Malnati, Patrick Cantlay and Adam Scott are the opposite participant administrators.
“The dialog all through was constructive and represents an necessary a part of our due diligence course of in choosing potential buyers for PGA Tour Enterprises,” Monahan wrote within the letter. “This mirrors the method we employed earlier this yr as we evaluated an funding supply from the Strategic Sports activities Group. Through the session, Yasir had an opportunity to introduce himself to our participant administrators and speak via his imaginative and prescient, priorities and motivations for investing in skilled golf.
“As we proceed these discussions with the PIF, we’ll maintain you up to date as a lot as doable, however please perceive that we have to preserve our place of not conducting negotiations in public. To that finish, we’ll present no additional feedback to the media presently.”
The PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the PIF fashioned a stunning alliance on June 6 after Monahan and different PGA Tour executives negotiated a framework settlement with the PIF in secret.
The framework settlement expired Dec. 31, however was prolonged as the perimeters continued to barter a possible deal.
On Jan. 31, Strategic Sports activities Group, a consortium of billionaire crew homeowners, athletes and others, introduced it was investing as a lot as $3 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, a brand new for-profit entity that can oversee business properties of the PGA Tour. SSG made an preliminary funding of $1.5 billion.
If a deal is reached with the PIF, one other $3 billion might probably be invested in PGA Tour Enterprises, in line with sources. The PIF, with estimated belongings of greater than $775 billion, has financed the rival LIV Golf League the previous three years.
Among the many points that had been imagined to be mentioned throughout the assembly had been LIV golfers’ pathways again to the PGA Tour and what potential punishment they might face, and crew golf’s place within the sport’s future.
Rory McIlroy and different golfers, together with participant administrators, have urged the PGA Tour in latest weeks to get a deal achieved with the PIF.
“I believe it ought to have occurred months in the past, so I’m glad that it is taking place,” McIlroy mentioned of the assembly. “Hopefully, that progresses conversations and will get us nearer to an answer.”
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