ORLANDO — Sunny skies are forecast for the weekend at the PGA Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament as an unfinished deal between competing golf leagues hangs in the air.
During a media blitz at the tournament, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan confirmed that deal talks are ongoing between the longstanding Professional Golfers’ Association and the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf — and that the price tag remains around $1.5 billion.
“We’re doing everything we can to reunify the game,” Monahan said. “75% of our fans tell us they’d like to see the game reunified, versus a low 30 percentile that say they would like to see an investment. So that’s a core foundation to why we’re spending the amount of time and energy to accomplish that.”
Some top players acknowledged that LIV Golf, a well-funded challenger league, has spurred the PGA to make changes. After launching in 2021, LIV Golf made headlines by offering nine-figure payments to players.
“The competition has created a bit of urgency within the PGA Tour,” PGA Tour player Justin Rose told Yahoo Finance. “We’ve obviously had initiatives that have come in. We’ve seen purses elevate. We’ve had some private equity money through SSG [Strategic Sports Group] come into the game, which I think has created different models for us as players.”
Rose, an 11-time PGA Tour winner and Olympic gold medalist, currently plays on the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and a newly launched league called TGL.
In 2024, Strategic Sports Group announced a $3 billion investment in the PGA, led by Fenway Sports Group and a handful of billionaire executives, including Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank and hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen.
Meanwhile, LIV Golf kicked off 2025 with a new CEO who carries a track record of managing huge sports brands.
Scott O’Neil, who replaced Greg Norman as the league’s chief executive in January, brings a wealth of experience from leadership roles at the New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, Philadelphia Eagles, New York Rangers, and Madison Square Garden.
“What LIV Golf has achieved in just three years is remarkable,” O’Neil said in a press release announcing the LIV leadership transition. “The game has been infused with a long overdue bolt of energy and innovation with the team model, players have increased freedom and rights, fans are getting the access they have always wanted, and the game has been brought to new markets that have been desperate for elite golf for decades.”
While a deal between the two entities has advanced, players know there are still major details to work out.
