Tiger Woods shares ‘positive’ update on PGA Tour-LIV Golf talks

After completing his final round of the Masters, Tiger Woods publicly discussed a recent meeting that included power players from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf League for the first time.

Last month, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, members of the PGA Tour Policy Board — including Tiger, Jordan Spieth, and Patrick Cantlay — and the chairman of LIV Golf’s backer, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), were among the bigwigs to descend on the Bahamas.

“I don’t know if we’re closer, but certainly we’re headed in the right direction,” Woods said in a brief post-Masters media gaggle. “That was a very positive meeting, and I think both sides came away from the meeting feeling positive.”

The PGA Tour and LIV Golf announced a framework agreement in June of 2023 and set an initial Dec. 31 deadline to hash out the details. Little progress has been made since.

Ahead of the Players Championship, Monahan claimed that talks with PIF were “accelerating” but any deal would “take time.” A chorus of PGA Tour and LIV Golf stars — including Tiger, Rory McIlroy, and Jon Rahm — have called for unification.

Earlier this year, the PGA Tour received up to $3 billion in investment from Strategic Sports Group (SSG), a consortium of sports owners. Tiger was named vice president of the newly formed PGA Tour Enterprises — a commercial branch focused on growing the game.

In partnership with the PGA Tour, TMRW Sports — a tech-driven sports and media company co-founded by Tiger and Rory — is launching its experimental arena-based golf league in 2025.

Monahan released a statement the day after the Bahamas meeting:

“The conversation throughout was constructive and represents an important part of our due diligence process in selecting potential investors for PGA Tour Enterprises. This mirrors the approach we employed earlier this year as we evaluated an investment offer from the Strategic Sports Group.

“During the session, Yasir had a chance to introduce himself to our player directors and talk through his vision, priorities and motivations for investing in professional golf.

“As we continue these discussions with the PIF, we will keep you updated as much as possible, but please understand that we need to maintain our position of not conducting negotiations in public. To that end, we will provide no further comments to the media at this time.”

PGA Tour player directors Webb Simpson, Peter Malnati, and Adam Scott were also in attendance, along with board member Joe Ogilvie and SSG execs.

According to Simpson, the meeting functioned as an intro between the PGA Tour reps and Al-Rumayyan.

“What I was interested in going there was to learn more about who he is and what he’s thinking,” Simpson said at the Valspar Championship. “Learn about LIV more. What was your intention and hope there? How’s it going? All that kind of stuff. A meet and greet and learn. I think he wanted to learn from us kind of what we think. We wanted to figure out what he thinks.

“If definitely seems like he envisions a place in the game of golf. We didn’t get as far as what he wants and what does LIV want.”

Woods reportedly played a round of golf with Al-Rumayyan at the Albany course near Nassau that hosts Tiger’s event, the Hero World Challenge. Arguably the two most powerful people in golf had never met.