On Tuesday June 6, 2023, the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced an agreement to combine PIF’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf) with the commercial business assets and rights of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity. The partnership ends multiple years of friction among the biggest stars in professional golf, and results in what is likely the largest professional athletics league partnership since 1970 when the American Football League (AFL) was absorbed into the National Football League (NFL).

Under the agreement, the tours will operate under a new entity with a name to be determined, and all pending antitrust litigation between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour will cease. Additionally, the parties announced that the tours will work together to implement a process for LIV Golf members previously suspended by the PGA Tour and DP World Tour to re-apply for tour membership.  The board of directors of the new entity will oversee and direct all of the new entity’s golf-related commercial operations, businesses, and investments with the PGA Tour holding a majority voting interest on the board while maintaining the responsibility for the sanctioning of all events, administration of competition, and rules regulation. The new entity’s board of directors will consist of PIF’s Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan acting as chairman, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan serving as CEO, and the remaining members of the board to be selected at a later date.

Notably, PGA Tour Inc. will remain in place and continue to operate as a 501(c)(6) tax-exempt organization and retain oversight over the tour while PIF will invest in the new entity as the exclusive investor. PIF will also have a right of first refusal on any capital that may be invested in the new entity. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan outlined how the tour’s 501(c)(6) status would continue to operate, highlighting that the assets of the PGA Tour, PIF assets, including the LIV Golf Tour and Asian Tour, and DP World Tour assets would be cumulatively combined into a for-profit LLC which will likely result in increased earnings for the players, tours, and collective sponsors.

The announced partnership undoubtedly raises questions of how the tour might move forward in the coming weeks and months. As the details of the partnership have been released, public criticism of the deal continues to grow, including from members of Congress. A number of Congressmen on both sides of the aisle have criticized the deal and many are calling upon the Department of Justice to investigate. Additionally, in the House, a bill has been introduced which would effectively strip the PGA Tour of its 501(c)(6) tax exempt status. With the United States Open Championship, one of golf’s four majors, set to kick off next week with a field comprised of both PGA and LIV players, the narrative on the merger is likely to continue to evolve. While at this point there are many more questions than answers, one thing that is certain is that the world’s best golfers will once again compete in the same events on the same tour for the first time since May of 2022.