During deal negotiations, Donald Trump meets with the Saudi PIF head and the PGA boss.
During deal negotiations, Donald Trump meets with the Saudi PIF head and the PGA boss.
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the head of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, and Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, met with US President-elect Donald Trump. The two men’s golf leaders are unable to reach an agreement.
Trump, who has hosted PGA Tour and Saudi-sponsored LIV Golf events on his courses, played golf with Monahan on Friday at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, according to a Washington Post story published on Sunday.
According to the publication, Trump then sat next to the director of the Saudi wealth fund at the UFC event on Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Given that discussions were held in secret and that Monahan had mocked LIV for months in order to keep additional stars from switching to the new series that debuted in 2022, the announcement of a framework merger agreement between Monahan and Al-Rumayyan in June 2023 caused a lot of controversy.
Men’s elite golf is having difficulty planning for the future with top players split between PGA and LIV after talks blew beyond a deadline in December of last year and haven’t made any forward since.
The Trump-Monahan meeting was verified by a PGA Tour representative, according to the Post. According to the spokesman, “President-Elect Trump has always been a champion of the game of golf and commissioner Monahan was honored to accept his invitation to play at Trump International,” the paper reported.
“The President-Elect and the Commissioner share a love for the game and the Commissioner enjoyed their time together,” he added.
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Trump courses have hosted five LIV events since the Saudi-backed series began. PGA events had been staged at other courses Trump owns.Negotiators for the PGA Tour include 15-time major winner Tiger Woods.
Trump said earlier this month he could help broker a deal between the two sides, saying on a podcast, “I would say it would take me the better part of 15 minutes to get that deal done.”
“I’m really going to work on other things, to be honest with you. I think we have much bigger problems than that. But I do think we should have one tour and they should have the best players in that tour.”
Rory McIlroy, who won the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai on Sunday, told reporters Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who sat to the other side of Trump in New York, could help sort out a deal.
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“He might be able to,” McIlroy said. “He’s got Elon Musk, who I think is the smartest man in the world, beside him. We might be able to do something if we can get Musk involved, too.
“Obviously Trump has a great relationship with Saudi Arabia. He’s got a great relationship with golf. He’s a lover of golf. So, maybe. Who knows? But I think as the president of the United States again, he’s probably got bigger things to focus on than golf.”
Among issues with a PGA-LIV deal are US Justice Department concerns over Saudi investments and anti-trust regulations. LIV and the PGA Tour have already announced plans for the 2025 season.
