“I can tell you no one in the hemisphere of golf really saw this coming,” said Todd Lewis, a veteran golf journalist, on the Golf Channel Tuesday morning. “This transformational partnership recognizes the immeasurable strength of the PGA TOUR’s history, legacy, and pro-competitive model and combines with it the DP World Tour and LIV – including the team golf concept – to create an organization that will benefit golf’s players, commercial and charitable partners, and fans.”Ī historic day? More like a historic sell-out and a historic surprise. “After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” said PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan. Monahan will become the CEO of the newly merged entity, and Yasir Al-Rumayyan will become the chairman. On Tuesday morning, Monahan appeared live on CNBC with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF, as these two men announced that the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour had struck a deal with LIV as these three leagues will merge and form a new entity. That gaudy figure clearly appealed to Monahan. Photo by Chris Trotman/LIV Golf via Getty Images Greg Norman, CEO and commissioner of LIV Golf, is seen with his excellency Yasir Al Rumayyan, and Majed Al Sorour, CEO of Saudi Golf Federation, during Day Three of the LIV Golf Invitational - Chicago at Rich Harvest Farms on September 18, 2022.

The PIF has more than $600 billion in assets, according to Bloomberg. LIV Golf is a part of the PIF’s “ Vision 2030,” a plan “to drive Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation through active, long-term investments and high standards of governance and transparency.”

Since LIV Golf’s inception, the PIF has invested almost $1 billion into LIV Golf, the start-up league.

The man who defended his tour, the same man who loathed and lambasted the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour, went behind the scenes and struck a deal with the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the benefactor of LIV. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan sold out, pure and simple.

Download largest clock in the world