After a relatively uneventful few months following the shock announcement of the PGA and DP World Tour’s alliance with the Saudi-backed PIF, the circus that is men’s professional golf has started up again. This time, there’s more unscripted chaos than ever before. It’s been suspiciously quiet since Jay Monahan and Yasir Al-Rumayyan stood in front of the cameras in early summer and announced their “framework agreement”, which contained very little substance. Six months on, the situation hasn’t changed. If anything, things are even more confusing.
LIV Golf just announced its schedule for 2024, which is interesting in itself. When the framework agreement was revealed, my first thought was ‘why does LIV Golf need to exist now?’ The reason LIV was introduced was for the Saudis to gain legitimacy in the golf space, which had clearly been achieved by partnering with the PGA and DP World Tours. I assumed the next step would be a new global schedule and a re-integration of LIV players into the existing PGA Tour structure, perhaps with some LIV-inspired elements added in.
