President-elect Donald Trump boasted during the campaign that it would take about 15 minutes to close a deal between the PGA Tour and Saudi investors in LIV Golf. It started with four hours on the golf course with PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan.
that washington post Monahan reportedly accepted Trump’s invitation to play golf last Friday at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The PGA Tour confirmed the outing in a statement.
“President-elect Trump has always been a champion of the game of golf, and Chairman Monaghan is honored to accept his invitation to play golf at Trump International,” the statement said. “The president-elect and the commissioner share a love of the game and the commissioner had a great time together.”
the next day, Trump attended the UFC Heavyweight Championship in New York. Elon Musk and Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, along with financial support for the rival LIV Tour, which caused a major rift in the game.
Monahan and al-Rumayyan played golf together at the Dunhill Links Championship. In Scotland last month on a European tour.
The tour did not disclose the nature of these discussions, and Monahan did not share details with key players to keep the negotiations private.
PGA Tour and PIF Agreement announced on June 6, 2023Saudi sovereign wealth fund to become investor in PGA Tour’s new commercial venture. This soon caught the attention of the Justice Department, and although the agreement’s deadline was set for December 31, negotiations are still ongoing.
that PGA Tour closes deal An initial $1.5 million investment in PGA Tour Enterprises with Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of sports owners, could grow to $3 billion.
Meanwhile, the golf world continues to be deeply divided, with the PGA Tour banning LIV players, including U.S. Open champions Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm, from participating in the tournament.
All of the best players in golf meet in major tournaments only four times a year.
Trump’s ‘Let’s Go!’ I joined the campaign. “It’s going to take about 15 minutes to get that deal done,” he said on a podcast with Jim Gray and Bill Belichick the day before the election.
“To be honest, I’d rather do something else,” Trump said on the podcast. “I think there is a much bigger problem than that. But I think we should have a tour and they should have the best players on that tour.”
Trump Golf Course hosted two LIV events in its inaugural season in 2022, three events in 2023 and one event this year. None of the Trump courses in Miami, New Jersey or the Washington area are on the 2025 schedule and have yet to be completed.
Trump was optimistic when LIV Golf launched and predicted that a merger was inevitable. He warned PGA Tour players on the Truth social media platform in July 2022: “If you don’t get paid now, you’ll get nothing after the merger and all they’ll say is how smart the original signatories were.”
Trump also battled the PGA Tour before he was first elected. Unable to find a tournament sponsor, the 2016 World Golf Championships event was taken from Trump Doral to Mexico City..
Aside from the PIF’s investment, one of the issues that needs to be addressed is how to bring together PGA Tour stalwarts and players who have defected to rival leagues without receiving huge signing bonuses in the Saudi league.
How the Justice Department views the deal is another obstacle to negotiations.
Rory McIlroy said after the election that even if President Trump is elected, nothing can stop any deal from getting done.
“He will be able to do that,” McIlroy said on November 6, the day after the election. “Next to him is Elon Musk, who I think is the smartest person in the world. “If Musk could participate, we might be able to do something.”
McIlroy isn’t sure how to solve it in 15 minutes.
“From the outside looking in, I think it’s a little less complicated than it is,” said McIlroy, who was part of the transaction committee that worked on the deal. “But obviously Trump has a good relationship with Saudi Arabia. He has a deep connection with golf. He is a golfer. Maybe. Who knows?”
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