“After two years of division and disagreement, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” said PGA Tour chief Jay Monahan. “It will mark a new era in the global sport of golf, a better one,” he added.
In the world of men’s golf, the situation has been tense since the creation of the LIV Golf series last year, which began to compete with the well-established PGA Tour. It has attracted a number of top players with its lucrativeness, nine-figure sums for “transfer” and generous bonuses at tournaments. The PGA Tour punished defectors with expulsion from the PGA Tour, and the European DP World Tour also banned golfers from participating in their tournaments. Because of this, even the players turned to the court.
But critics of LIV Golf mainly pointed to the fact that the series is financed by Saudi Arabia, and pointed out that the country is trying to improve its image damaged by its human rights record.
“They (LIV) went their way, we went our way… and then when you look at it, you realize that all the tension is not good. We have a responsibility to our Tour and the game as such and we sensed that the time is right to discuss it,” Monahan, who is slated to serve as executive director of the new organization, told the AP. The chairman should be Yasir ar-Rumajyan, the governor of the aforementioned fund.
It has not yet been announced what the name of the organization will be and what format the tournaments will have, whether and when players will be able to participate without distinction this season or what about the possibility of their starting at the Ryder Cup, the traditional match between the US and European teams . In last year’s President’s Cup, in which the Americans compete against the rest of the world without the Europeans, both lineups were weakened by players playing LIV. According to the statement, the details of the agreement will be discussed in the coming months.
In any case, the news caused excitement among the golfers. “Amazing day,” tweeted one of LIV’s most prominent players Phil Mickelson, a six-time major winner and Hall of Famer. “I love discovering the morning news on Twitter,” said two-time major winner Collin Morikawa. Former US President Donald Trump, on whose grounds three of this year’s 14 LIV tournaments are played, called the creation of the agreement a great news.