Similar to many exciting golf moments, Monday began with a team of online detectives following an aircraft.
It appeared that talks between the PGA Tour and the Saudi sovereign wealth fund were drawing to a close when Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch over the weekend revealed that some of the game’s biggest names were thinking about meeting with Saudi PIF chief Yasir Al-Rumayyan as early as this week. More players revealed during the course of the weekend that a meeting was really scheduled and may take place as early as Monday am.
According to Rory McIlroy, “I think it should have happened months ago, so I am glad that it’s happening.” “Hopefully, that advances the dialogue and brings us one step closer to a resolution.”
Then, on Monday morning when the sun came up, the Twitter detectives went to work, identifying a few events that happened one after the other. The first was that a private aircraft registered to the PGA Tour was flying to the Bahamas from Tour Headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The second stated that the PGA Tour aircraft would be landing at the same Albany airfield that had just the day before welcomed another private aircraft, this one from the Saudi PIF. Third, Tiger Woods’ megayacht, Privacy, left for a diving tour off the coast of the Bahamas about half an hour after the Saudi PIF flight arrived, possibly providing an opportunity for an unscheduled encounter between PIF representatives and the 15-time major champion. It was official: Yasir Al-Rumayyan, sometimes known as H.E. (or “His Excellency”), was scheduled to meet with the player directors of the PGA Tour. This meeting might have a significant impact on the future of professional golf.
There was silence after that early bustle of activity. The planes would remain grounded, at least for the remainder of the afternoon, as talks between Al-Rumayyan and the Tour’s player directors, who retain a voting majority over all possible Tour equity actions, continued. There would be no more planned movements for Woods’ boat. There was work to be done and a group of very hard-to-manage individuals here to complete it.
Then, as the sun was setting, commissioner Jay Monahan texted the PGA Tour players with an update: the meeting was over.
“The entire discussion was fruitful and constitutes a significant portion of our due diligence procedure in identifying possible investors for PGA Tour Enterprises,” stated Monahan. “This is similar to the strategy we used to assess an investment offer from the Strategic Sports Group earlier this year.”
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According to Monahan’s observation, Al-Rumayyan’s message was positive; in fact, one could argue that it was a sales pitch.
Yasir had the opportunity to present himself to our player directors during the meeting and discuss his goals, priorities, and reasons for making an investment in professional golf, according to Monahan.
It was not disclosed what specifics of the proposal were discussed, including difficult subjects like team golf, investor valuation, and reunion with LIV Golf. Mum’s the word, according to Monahan, at least until a deal is signed.
He continued, “We will keep you informed as we continue these discussions with the PIF, but please understand that we need to maintain our position of not conducting negotiations in public.” “Therefore, at this time, we will not be making any more comments to the media.”
The good news is that there appears to be a chance that a deal may be completed shortly. That’s not only a good development, but a necessary one after nine months of drama surrounding the post-merger negotiations and a general sense of exhaustion among the sport’s supporters.
Furthermore, there’s a chance that a trade of this kind could be completed in good faith on both sides, at least in McIlroy’s opinion.
McIlroy stated, “He wants to do the right thing fundamentally.” “I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but having spent time with Yasir, I believe Norman and those guys have done a disservice to him as his representatives in LIV. I believe PIF is over here, and LIV is kind of over here on their own.
He declared, “They’re a sovereign wealth fund.” “They want to put money in a bank account and forget about it for decades. If they’re wanting to invest in sports in any capacity, the PGA Tour is unquestionably one of the wise and safe companies they want to put their money into.
