Golf legend Tiger Woods reportedly joined members of the PGA Tour coverage board within the Bahamas this week for the resumption of negotiations with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan.
On Tuesday AEDT, a crew led by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan travelled to the Caribbean to fulfill with Al-Rumayyan, re-starting the method of mapping out a plan to unify the sport.
In response to stories, Woods was one of many tour’s participant administrators that joined the “meet-and-greet”, with flight-tracking accounts putting the 48-year-old’s jet within the Bahamas.
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The assembly is a key step for a complete unification within the males’s professional recreation with a framework settlement between the PGA Tour and PIF — made public final June — but to grow to be something concrete.
A self-imposed deadline of December 31 to ratify the deal got here and went, whereas the PGA Tour ultiamtely struck a seperate cope with a bunch of US billionaires that reportedly raised its worth to $12 billion (A$18.3bn).
This got here after PIF poached megastar Jon Rahm for LIV Golf, thus escalating tensions with the PGA Tour additional.
However these tensions might be cooling once more with this week’s assembly within the Bahamas probably paving the best way in the direction of a deal.
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Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis reported that future talks between the events would concentrate on how a lot the PIF, which funds Greg Norman’s breakaway tour, would put money into the PGA Tour and potential pathways for return of LIV Golf gamers.
“I think about I’ll do much more listening than speaking. I’m excited to listen to what I’ll study and I’ll have much more data after,” PGA participant director Patrick Cantlay stated this week.
“I doubt we’ll get into something substantive within the first assembly, simply extra of a meet and greet.
“If there’s a deal that might be struck that’s in the most effective curiosity of your complete membership, I’m all for it. And, if there’s not, there’s not.”
Irish golf star Rory McIlroy, one in all LIV Golf’s staunchest critics when it first began poaching gamers, has softened his stance because the PIF made an settlement with the PGA Tour that might finish the sport’s civil battle.
“Completely, I feel it ought to have occurred months in the past, so I’m glad that it’s occurring,” McIlroy stated of the assembly, which was initially anticipated to happen in Florida.
“Hopefully, that progresses conversations and will get us nearer to an answer.”
The trail again to the PGA Tour for LIV gamers stays a degree of rivalry, however McIlroy wasn’t certain there could be motion within the brief time period, ought to a deal be finalised.
“It’s going to require endurance. Folks have contracts at LIV up till 2028, 2029,” he stated.
“I don’t know in the event that they’re going to see that every one the best way out, however I undoubtedly see LIV taking part in in its present type for the following couple years whereas every little thing will get found out.
“(It’s not) an in a single day answer, but when we are able to get the funding in, then at the least we are able to begin working in the direction of a compromise.”