A high-stakes meeting took place on Monday in the Bahamas.
Tiger Woods, PGA Tour Policy Board members meet LIV Golf, Saudi PIF boss
PGA Tour Policy Board members, including Tiger Woods, joined Jay Monahan in meeting Yasir al-Rumayyan, the Governor of the Saudi PIF.
Jack Milko has been playing golf since he was five years old. He has yet to record a hole-in-one, but he did secure an M.A. in Sports Journalism from St. Bonaventure University.
Tiger Woods, along with PGA Tour policy board members and PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, met Yasir al-Rumayyan, the Governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), for the first time in person.
Initial reports indicated that this introductory meeting would occur in Ponta Vedra Beach, Florida, where The Players Championship concluded on Sunday. However, flight tracking data, as well as other reports from Todd Lewis and Ryan Lavner of Golf Channel, indicated that this gathering took place ‘off-shore.’
Regardless of location, the conversations had will be kept “close to the vest,” per Lewis. That coincides with Monahan’s statement at The Players, as the Commissioner indicated that these negotiations would not play out before the public.
Nevertheless, Monday’s meeting served as an ‘ice-breaker’ of sports, helping the player directors put a face to the names of numerous PIF representatives.
Monahan confirmed this in a letter to players on Monday evening, posted initially to X by Ryan French of Monday Q:
“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, [al-Rumayyan] 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.”
Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Webb Simpson, and Peter Malnati currently serve as the other Player Directors alongside Woods—all of whom were in attendance on Monday.
Discussions between these two sides will continue, but as Monahan emphasized at TPC Sawgrass on Mar. 12, the golfing world must be patient as negotiations play out.
Still, Lewis reported that these future meetings will focus on three main points. First, what will the PIF’s investment look like into the for-profit PGA Tour Enterprises; second, how does team golf fit into the sport as a whole; and third, and perhaps most importantly to golf fans, how do players from LIV Golf return to the PGA Tour.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
