The white flag looms in golf’s great civil war, and Aussies could cash in — State of Play

Golf fans are fed up, so are the players and it appears some of the game’s leading bodies are too.

It was June 6 last year that the PGA Tour and LIV Golf announced the creation of a new entity that would combine the assets of men’s professional golf’s warring factions, as well as those of the DP World Tour, and bring peace to the kingdom.

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But roughly 16 months on, there is little progress to be shown except for symbolic gestures which suggests a treaty is on its way.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – who fund LIV Golf – Yasir Al-Rumayyan recently played in the same group at the DP World Tour’s famous pro-am event the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland.

They were all smiles and embraced one another with a big hug to show that all is well.

They will also both play in the same group as Rory McIlroy during the tournament, and the Northern Irishman – who has acted as the mouthpiece of the PGA Tour throughout much of the saga – seems to believe that the coming together of both chiefs on the Scottish links indicates that an end will come “definitely by the end of the year”.

Insiders walked away from last month’s meeting between both parties in New York less optimistic, however.

The negotiations were met with condemnation by the families of 9/11 survivors as the PIF’s presence coincided with the anniversary of the terror attack, and no resolutions emerged from the meetings.

Reports suggested squabbling over millions of dollars by PGA Tour members demanding financial punishments for their LIV counterparts.

The PGA of America – not to be confused with the PGA Tour – had seen enough and took matters into their own hands by announcing last month that LIV players will be eligible to play in the major they run, the US PGA Championship.

They also announced that American LIV golfers will be eligible for the US Ryder Cup team making the selection process more legitimate than Brooks Koepka only being picked in Rome last year because his victory at the US PGA Championship demanded it.

The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship’s organisers made a similar move by inviting 14 LIV players – including Jon Rahm and Koepka – to compete in their event staged at the iconic St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns.

Their actions are yet another example of golf’s other leading bodies sending a clear message that they will do what is best for their tournaments going forward rather than being drawn into politics.

But a lot of people remain in the dark over how the men’s professional game will look and feel in the coming years.

Is the merger actually going to happen?

Yes.

There seems to be little doubt that a merger in some form or another will take place.

Investors in the PGA Tour and the PIF want it done, and so too do the executives, to gain a financial windfall from doing so.

They are currently cannibalising each other with competing tournaments and there is plenty more money to be made when they do not have to fight one another for star players, broadcast rights, sponsorships and eyeballs on social media.

What the suits want, they will get. Even if the players disagree.

Rory McIlroy told reporters at the DP World Tour’s BMW PGA Championship last month that he believes only half the players from both tours want a merger to happen.

No one could blame the LIV players for enjoying the lifestyle benefits afforded by having bucketloads of cash and playing 14 tournaments a year plus majors, and any other events they decide/are able to, in comparison to the near weekly grind of the PGA Tour.

Especially for non-Americans, as the likes of Australians Cameron Smith and Marc Leishman have enjoyed a lot more time at home with family and friends in recent years.

But ultimately, money talks and the players will do as they are told – even if they are not sure what that will be yet.

McIlroy’s regular dialogue about the merger indicates that the influential PGA Tour players are somewhat up to date with the happenings of the negotiations, while those on the other side of the fence remain in the dark.

Brooks Koepka joined the Pardon My Take podcast last month alongside fellow LIV star Talor Gooch and shared that they “don’t know what’s going on”.

The five-time major champion’s revelation came as little surprise however, as players on both sides were caught by surprise last year by the June 6 announcement.

But perhaps Koepka, Gooch and others have not been keeping track of the updates as some of the issues in the negotiations so far have been made public.

What’s the hold up?

Pettiness? A thirst for revenge? Greed? Unwillingness to co-operate?

A little bit of all those things and more.

Bloomberg reported that the recent meetings in New York descended into squabbling about money.

Some PGA Tour players supposedly called for the likes of Jon Rahm to either pay back their lucrative LIV contracts, pay fines to play in events, give money to charity or forfeit future winnings on the PGA Tour.

It is no secret that those who stayed loyal benefited financially from the emergence of LIV with the PGA Tour raising prize purses as well as introducing elevated, no-cut events.

The reports led to widespread criticism of the hypocrisy of millionaires complaining about other millionaires’ money including from Tiger Woods’ former coach Hank Haney on X.

“Are the same PGA Tour players going to give back all the extra money they made because the LIV tour/players caused the PGA Tour purses to go up dramatically? As they like to say, can’t have your cake and eat it too,” he said.

That was not the only issue holding proceedings up, however.

Many PGA Tour players also still hold resentment towards the LIV players for their legal battles with the PGA Tour.

Eleven defectors – including Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau – filed an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour in 2022 to challenge their suspensions.

They argued that the PGA Tour were trying to hurt their careers, and the legal saga dragged on for ten months until both sides agreed to drop them because of astronomical legal costs – which reportedly neared $50 million for the PGA Tour.

It has been forgotten by many how nasty things got in 2022 and 2023, but not by several PGA Tour players.

“(The main issue) It’s how to integrate LIV players back and what LIV’s future looks like in a unified game (current LIV situation likely done, but will be around in some form),” Golf Digest senior writer Joe Beall said on X.

“Also, LIV $$$ is not the aversion to a reconciliation for tour players. It’s assimilating defectors who sued the PGA Tour, a lawsuit which (according to leadership) put the tour in a vulnerable financial position. Players understandably want consequences for this group.”

From the other side of the fence, LIV players are frustrated by the PGA Tour’s aversity to a more global schedule.

LIV CEO Greg Norman used to return home to Australia every year to play in front of his adoring fans, and he has long sought a truly global tour having pushed the concept in the 1990s.

LIV’s schedule reflects ‘The Shark’s’ desires as their 54-hole tournaments have been played in Australia, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and Singapore this year, while apart from one week in Japan as well as the co-sanctioned Scottish Open and the Open Championship, the PGA Tour remains confined to the Americas this year.

American players have long been reluctant to do too much travel away from the United States and Norman, as well as many other LIV people, want a return to golf’s halcyon days when legends like Jack Nicklaus travelled the world and played events like the Australian Open most years.

Nicklaus won Australia’s national open six times as he chalked up 118 professional victories all around the world.

Current world number one Scottie Scheffler, in comparison, has only won twice on foreign soil – in the Bahamas at Tiger Woods’ Hero World Challenge and in Paris at the Olympic Games.

The LIV side want to see the likes of Scheffler showcasing his extraordinary talents all around the world – not just in the United States and the United Kingdom for two weeks a year.

Where are we right now?

Right now, we’re almost at business as usual.

The PGA Tour has a full schedule locked in until the Tour Championship at the end of August next year, while LIV curiously have only released dates and locations for their first four events of 2025 – Riyadh, Adelaide, Hong Kong and Singapore – in February and March.

LIV players who are exempt into The Masters, the US Open and The Open will play them but their colleagues without exemptions will have to play their way in via qualifying tournaments.

As per the PGA of America’s announcement, LIV golfers will be able to play the US PGA Championship and American LIV stars will be eligible for the Ryder Cup next year.

But things do not seem as simple for the European LIV players.

Spaniard Jon Rahm is in a fierce battle with the DP World Tour over fines that may jeopardise his involvement in the Ryder Cup.

LIV have previously paid almost AU$25 million in fines for their players to the formerly named European Tour, but they in Rahm’s case they are no longer accepting the Saudi-backed league bailing out their players.

European LIV players must play at least four events per year on the DP World Tour to be eligible for Ryder Cup selection and Rahm has maintained his presence on his home continent featuring in the Spanish Open and the Dunhill Links in recent weeks.

But the fines saga may cause the DP World Tour to not select Rahm for Ryder Cup duties.

The other biennial team event, the Presidents Cup, which was won last week by the Americans at Royal Montreal Golf Club in Canada, is run by the PGA Tour and therefore forbids LIV players from either the US or the International team.

The next edition of the tournament which the US have won ten times in a row will be played in Chicago in 2026 and will be contested under the same conditions if the current landscape remains.

The Official World Golf Rankings have been a point of contention ever since LIV emerged.

LIV events still do not receive world rankings points which means their players still have to go searching for them in events they are eligible to play-in around the world.

World ranking remains a key criterion for entry into the majors and events like the Olympics, so LIV players must pick them up wherever possible to give themselves the best chance of meeting the cut-offs for those big tournaments.

This spells good news for Australian golf fans with Cameron Smith confirmed to feature at the Australian PGA Championship, Queensland PGA Championship and the NSW Open this summer, while fellow LIV star Joaquin Neimann locked-in to defend his Australian Open title.

What could the landscape look like in the future?

The PGA Tour side have focused on everyone coming back together as one tour, but LIV want to remain.

It is likely that both tours will continue to exist without clashing marquee events and players having the ability to compete across both.

Co-operation with scheduling would be paramount to that possibly working, but it would create intriguing storylines about which players would choose to play which events.

Jon Rahm has publicly expressed his desire to one day play PGA Tour events again, while it would be an amazing backflip if Rory McIlroy featured in a LIV event after his comments about hating the 54-hole format.

Recent World Golf Hall of Fame inductee Padraig Harrington believes the PGA Tour and LIV peacefully running parallel to one another is the best way forward because it will spark rivalries as well as allow players on both sides to have what they want.

Harrington even suggested a potential framework when asked about his vision for the future of men’s professional golf at last month’s Irish Open.

“Ideally for me I would suggest that every PGA Tour and European Tour event should have four invites for LIV players, and every LIV event should have four invites for an international team,” the Irishman said.

“That way we have enough crossover that we can get Jon Rahm to play the European Tour, and we can get Abraham Ancer to play the Mexican Open. If four PGA Tour guys come over, it’s not like they are going to be welcomed with open arms, so that creates buzz at their events.

“They can do all the business solutions, that’s a completely different thing but you’re not convincing the guys on the PGA Tour that they are going to play an extra ten events, 14 events around the world.

“But maybe having an invite – and nobody has to like each other. You know, it’s good for sport when you have rivalries, and we’ve seen it at the majors this year.

“The majors have never been better because of those rivalries, so why couldn’t we have that this week (at the Irish Open)? Why couldn’t we have a few guys – like I’m sure Tyrrell playing last week created a great buzz, two weeks ago at the British Masters.

“There will be a lot of home fans wanting him to do well and then there’s plenty of people that didn’t want him to do well. In the right context, that’s good.”

The coexistence of two strong tours what be something of a call back to golf’s previous generations.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the US PGA Tour and the European Tour were more similar in standard than they are today as players chose whether they wanted to follow their dreams in America or Europe.

Spanish sensation Seve Ballesteros irregularly played in the United States outside of the majors as he preferred to remain in Europe where he won a record 50 times, while American Jack Nicklaus dominated in his home country.

The separation for much of the year made their battles at the majors even more intriguing.

This is like what we have experienced in recent years and, although Rory McIlroy recently expressed his displeasure at the idea, it may be the way forward.

“If things don’t materialise with the PGA Tour, I think it would maybe bring the European Tour back to like the 80s and 90s when there was like really two strong tours,” McIlroy said.

“But it keeps the game divided and I don’t like that. It would be Plan B. It would be maybe an alternative to the best solution.”

What does it mean for Australia?

A more global tour can only benefit Australian golf.

LIV Adelaide has been a huge successfully event that the likes of Greg Norman will be determined to keep on the calendar going forward.

The scenes of more than 30,000 fans lining the fairways each day and creating a party atmosphere at The Grange are not replicated anywhere around the world, and they could reach pandemonium if the idea of players freely shifting between the PGA Tour and LIV eventuates.

One Australian player who would love the ‘watering hole’ more than anyone would be Min Woo Lee.

Lee and his Australian PGA Tour players Adam Scott, Jason Day and Cam Davis could form a second all-Australian team alongside ‘Ripper GC’ at LIV Adelaide under Padraig Harrington’s proposal which would surely be a crowd pleaser.

Or potentially the PGA Tour could add events like the Australian Open or the Australian PGA Championship – which the PGA Tour of Australasia co-sanction with the DP World Tour – to their schedule.

The Australian PGA Championship has found an excellent home in Royal Queensland – which will host the Olympic golf at the Brisbane 2032 Games – and bringing out the world’s top players for a week in Queensland before heading south to the Melbourne Sandbelt would be simply exquisite.

Kingston Heath Golf Club will co-host the mixed-gender Australian Open with Victoria Golf Club this year – as they did in 2022 – in a precursor to hosting the 2028 Presidents Cup.

Melbourne Sandbelt courses are renowned for being among the best in the world and truly deserve to be showcased on the global stage more regularly.

An annual PGA Tour event would be superb rather than the only having the Presidents Cup come to down roughly every decade – the 2019 edition was held at Royal Melbourne.

The Presidents Cup is set to be a better spectacle at Kingston Heath as the merger should lead to the reintroduction of LIV players.

The likes of Cameron Smith returning to the International team would surely attract more eyeballs and help achieve a rare Internationals victory – they have won only once in the event’s 30-year history.

The Internationals simply did not have the depth of talent to match it with the Americans for long enough at Royal Montreal, but the LIV players returning on top of the foreign challenge of a Sandbelt and a parochial Australian course may lift the Internationals over the line.

Therefore, Australia may be positioned as a key cog in the new landscape for professional golf brought on by the merger.