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What is LIV Golf? Players, field, tour schedule, news for league with Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson

Everything to know about the pga tour's newest rival.

LIV Golf is now more than halfway through its inaugural season after completion of play in Chicago. Making headlines both on and off the golf course, LIV Golf has taken its battle to the courtroom, social media and beyond. While the actual play in LIV Golf has been compelling at times, the overall structure, presence and future of the organization remains its most intriguing component in the context of men's professional golf.

Plenty of questions have been answered since its inaugural event in London from June 9-11, but still more remain without a response. What will the future of this rival tour look like? How will the team aspect of the competition clash with the individual side? Will LIV Golf be able to recruit some of the best players in the world with its Official World Golf Rankings status in the air? Is a court date with the PGA Tour inevitable?

At every step along the way, answers about this league have only produced more questions and clarification has only made the future more complicated. 

The breakdown below is our attempt to share with you everything that's known to this point as we head into the whatever LIV Golf is going to look like in the future. Whether this turns out to be a fork or bump in the road of professional golf remains to be seen (only the future will retroactively determine that), but it does feel monumental in the moment.

LIV Golf, empowered by its unlimited war chest of resources to throw at the best players, is officially at odds with the PGA Tour. It's a period of time that has been promised for a long time, and is finally taking place. Let's take a look at what we know and what we can expect in the weeks, months and years ahead as LIV Golf wraps up its first season at the end of October.

What is LIV Golf?

LIV Golf is a rival golf league to the PGA Tour where the tournaments consist of 54 holes, the fields are limited to 48 golfers and the purses are an astronomical $25 million. Twelve, four-man teams will compete in each event, and the individual purses will be $20 million while the other $5 million will be divided up among the best teams each week.

Who leads LIV Golf?

LIV Golf Investments runs the league, and its CEO is two-time major champion Greg Norman. It is funded by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, which is effectively the financial arm of the Saudi Arabian government. These funds are seemingly limitless as the league has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to players just to guarantee their appearances at the LIV Golf Invitational Series events.

Who is playing for LIV Golf?

It began with Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson headlining the London event and has since grown into a respectable roster. Major champions Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed quickly followed the lead of their fellow Americans. 

More recently, and more importantly, world No. 3 and Champion Golfer of the Year Cameron Smith made the leap after the completion of the 2022 Tour Championship. He was joined by young Chilean Joaquin Niemann as two international players who chose to forgo the Presidents Cup in lieu of playing in the LIV Golf event in Boston. While the initial demographics skewed towards older players like Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Mickelson, there has been an influx of younger talent with Abraham Ancer and Harold Varner III among others.

Here's a look at the 49 men who currently play for LIV Golf and their Official World Golf Rankings (Bubba Watson is a non-playing captain and is set to compete once fully recovered from injury).

What is going on legally between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour?

Originally, 11 LIV Golf players were a part of an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour. This suit also sought a temporary restraining order for Hudson Swafford, Matt Jones and Talor Gooch to participate in the 2021-22 FedEx Cup Playoffs -- which was ultimately denied and barred them from playing in the PGA Tour postseason.

Since then, slowly but surely, more and more of the original members have removed their names from the lawsuit. Previously, Ancer, Carlos Ortiz, Jason Kokrak and Pat Perez left the suit. More recently, Talor Gooch, Mickelson, Poulter and Swafford followed in their footsteps. 

This leaves only three players seeking punitive damages in a legal battle with the PGA Tour: Bryson DeChambeau, Peter Uihlein and Jones. The trial is set to begin in January 2024.

The Tour has over and over again pointed back to its rules and regulations in this matter and remains set on keeping those who have played on LIV Golf off the PGA Tour. Commissioner Jay Monahan was asked at the Tour Championship if there was any chance LIV Golf members would be welcomed back onto the PGA Tour to which he blatantly answered, "no."

How has the PGA Tour reacted to LIV Golf?

After a players-only meeting at the BMW Championship led by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, sweeping changes have been made to the PGA Tour schedule and the treatment of its star players. Here are the spark notes of this new-look PGA Tour starting this season.

• Top players will commit to at least 20 PGA Tour events:  These tournaments will include the eight elevated events as previously designated, four additional elevated events with purses of at least $20 million (to be announced), The Players Championship, the four major championships and three other FedEx Cup events of players' choosing.
• The PIP will be expanded:  The PIP has been increased from the top 10 players to the top 20 for 2022 and 2023. Not only has the player pool expanded, so has the prize pool, which will now total $100 million, double the $50 million previously announced. It is from these top 20 lists that "top players" will be defined.
• Modifications  made for Lifetime Membership:  No longer will 15 seasons of membership be necessary. Once a player reaches 20 wins, he will be eligible. With this change, McIlroy has secured his lifetime membership with Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth only being a handful of wins away.

Will LIV Golf receive Official World Golf Rankings points?

LIV Golf is still awaiting the status of its OWGR application despite its best attempts to expedite the process. All 49 players recently sent a letter to the OWGR chairman requesting that world ranking points be retroactively applied to its events. Comparing the OWGR without LIV to college football without the SEC or FIFA without Belgium, it is unlikely this holds any merit. 

Meanwhile, players have begun to tee it up on the DP World Tour with some consistency on weeks in which there is no LIV Golf event. The top 50 players in the OWGR at the end of the calendar year will be invited to the 2023 Masters making it a mad dash for players to accumulate as many points as possible before then.

Will the majors allow golfers to play?

That's an even better question that has at least some clarity.  The answer in the short term is: yes . The major organizations -- PGA of America, USGA, R&A and Augusta National -- likely won't announce suspensions or bans of players who participate. There is a potential that qualifying criterias are modified in the future, however as of now if a LIV player gains entry through previous exemptions or the adequate OWGR (points which LIV has yet to secure) he should be able to compete.

What is the LIV Golf schedule?

Five events have already taken place in 2022, with three remaining. Here's a look at what's left on the schedule for the inaugural season.

• Bangkok, Thailand: Oct. 7-9
• Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: Oct. 14-16
• Miami, Florida: Oct. 27-30

LIV Golf has released a tentative schedule for 2023 with 14 stops around the globe spanning Washington D.C., Spain and Australia.  This is unofficial as details have yet to be confirmed.

• February: Florida (course TBD)
• February: California (course TBD)
• March: Tucson (Dove Mountain or the Gallery)
• April: Australia (Sydney or Queensland)
• April: Singapore (Sentosa)
• May: Washington D.C. (CBS Sports can confirm Trump National DC the week after PGA Championship)
• June: Philadelphia (course TBD)
• July: London (Centurion)
• July: Spain (Valderrama the week before The Open)
• August: New Jersey (Trump National Bedminster)
• August: West Virginia (The Greenbrier)
• September: Chicago (course TBD)
• September: Toronto or Mexico (course TBD)
• September: Florida (Trump National Doral)

What does LIV Golf's season finale look like?

It will not look like the Tour Championship, that is for certain. Taking place from Oct. 28-30, the top four teams in LIV will receive a bye on the first day while teams 5-12 will compete in match-play competitions with the higher-ranked teams selecting their opponents. For each matchup, three matches consisting of two singles matches and one alternate-shot match will take place.

The same format will be used for Day 2 of competition with the four victors from Day 1 and the four teams which received a bye all playing. From there, the four winners from Day 2 will advance to the final stage which will be different.

The four winning teams will compete in stroke play on the final day of competition. All 16 players will compete and all four scores will count towards the team's score. The lowest team score will be crowned the LIV Golf Invitational Series Team Champion.

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Here's why the PGA Tour just merged with LIV Golf

The PGA Tour announced Tuesday it would merge with LIV Golf, a Saudi-backed men's golf organization that formed last year to compete with the PGA.

News of the merger sent shock waves through the sports world and even reached the highest echelons of the U.S. government, after a reporter sought comment from the Biden administration about the Saudi government's taking such a large stake in men's golf. Biden spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment.

Here's what it all means.

What is LIV Golf?

LIV was created in 2022 by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) alongside two of the world's most prominent players, Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman, and others.

Norman was appointed CEO, but it was Mickelson who helped LIV come into existence. Mickelson accused the PGA Tour of not fairly compensating players for things like highlight clips and other media rights , accusing the organization of "obnoxious greed."

Eventually, Mickelson helped persuade 48 players to abandon the PGA Tour for LIV.

The merger has shown that Saudi Arabia and its interests cannot be isolated, veteran U.S. diplomat Richard N. Haass said.

“It's not as big as the Biden visit or agreement with Iran , and it doesn't offset their recent failure to raise oil prices,” said Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations . "But it does send the signal they are a player who cannot be ignored."

Why did the PGA Tour initially bar players from participating in LIV?

The PGA Tour immediately viewed LIV Golf as a direct competitor — and many in the golf world agreed, often referring to it as a “breakaway league.”

So the Tour decided to force players to pick a side, creating harsh divisions in the golf world.

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan also seemed to disparage the presence of the Saudis in LIV, asking rhetorically in a June 2022 interview , “Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”

And in response to a lawsuit from players who'd joined LIV and said the PGA Tour had retaliated against them, lawyers for the organization condemned LIV as “a strategy by the Saudi government to use sports in an effort to improve its reputation for human rights abuses and other atrocities.”

So why is the PGA Tour merging with LIV?

The two leagues ended up suing each other — but acrimony and lawsuits ultimately proved bad business for the PGA Tour, which made the calculated decision to endure the blowback of turning 180 degrees in exchange for a unified effort with its former rival.

Lawsuits filed by suspended players and a federal probe into possible antitrust actions by the PGA Tour against LIV may also be moot in the wake of Tuesday's announcement.

"We've recognized that together we can have a far greater impact on this game than we can working apart," Monahan told CNBC, seated next to his LIV counterpart, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. "And I give Yasir great credit for coming to the table, coming to the discussions with an open heart and open mind."

Despite the vast financial resources at its disposal thanks to its Saudi backing, LIV had failed to secure major TV deals to broadcast its events, which were often instead relegated to livestreams on YouTube.

With its commercial viability in doubt, LIV officials may have decided it was better to cut their losses and approach the PGA Tour with an offering of peace — and money.

How much money is involved? What are the financial incentives on both sides?

Terms of the merger haven't been disclosed, but LIV Golf players were reportedly being promised eight- and nine-figure earnings to join the league, thanks to the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is worth about $676 billion.

CNBC's David Faber, who helped break Tuesday's news with an exclusive interview with Monahan and Al-Rumayyan, said the PIF plans to invest "billions" into the newly formed entity while it retains a minority stake.

How will major golf events be affected?

They won't.

The Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open (now known as The Open) and the PGA Championship (which, despite its name, isn't actually owned by the PGA Tour) are all separate entities from the PGA Tour.

Nor does the Tour control the biennial team-based Ryder Cup tournament — though heading into this year's event, there were questions about whether U.S. team captain Zach Johnson would forgo selecting LIV members.

Have there been mergers in professional sports before?

All four of North America's major professional team sports leagues have some kind of merger in their histories, most notably the NFL-AFL union that led to the Super Bowl.

The first World Series in 1903 , the 1976 NBA-ABA deal and the NHL's 1979 takeover of the upstart WHA , though, all pale in comparison to the geopolitical stage where the PGA Tour-LIV drama played out.

What are people in golf saying?

As expected, reaction to the stunning deal ran the gamut — from LIV backers' spiking the ball to 9/11 survivors' criticizing the PGA Tour for merging with the Saudi-backed LIV, which they likened to “terrorists,” with others resigned to money's simply ruling the day.

Former President Donald Trump typed in all caps on Truth Social, boasting that he predicted that the PGA Tour would have to come to terms with LIV.

A key Sept. 11 support group, 9/11 Families United, said it was "shocked and deeply offended" and claimed the merger is "bankrolled by billions in sportswashing money from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." It added: "Saudi operatives played a key role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and now it is bankrolling all of professional golf."

George Washington University sports marketing professor Lisa Delpy Neirotti verbally shrugged her shoulders and said the deal shouldn't have been a shock.

"I ask my students how to spell the word 'sports?' It's m-o-n-e-y," she said. "Fans have a short memory. They really want to see their stars. They want to see a better product."

Rob Wile is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist covering breaking business stories for NBCNews.com.

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What Is the LIV Golf Series? A Deep Dive Into the PGA's Rival Tour

Liv golf's inaugural tournament takes place this week, by eric mullin • published june 8, 2022 • updated on june 8, 2022 at 4:27 pm.

Professional golf is about to enter a new era.

LIV Golf gets underway on Thursday with the LIV Golf Invitational at the Centurion Club outside of London. The Saudi-backed rival league of the PGA Tour boasts stars Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, in addition to several other players from the Tour.

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Ahead of LIV Golf’s inaugural tournament, here’s everything you need to know about the breakaway league.

What does LIV Golf stand for?

The “LIV'' in LIV Golf isn’t an acronym. Rather, it stands for the Roman numeral of 54 for the number of holes each tournament will be, and the score a golfer would have if they birdied every hole on a par-72 course.

Who owns LIV Golf?

LIV Golf is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The Saudi Arabian government initially pledged $400 million to start the league. 

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Greg Norman, a former two-time major winner and world No. 1 golfer, is the CEO and commissioner of LIV Golf Investments. Legend Jack Nicklaus said he rebuked an offer of over $100 million from LIV Golf to do a job similar to Norman’s.

Beyond its investment in sports, including ownership of English Premier League team Newcastle United, the Saudi Arabian government has been accused of human rights violations, including suspected involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Phil Mickelson expressed concern about the Saudis’ “record on human rights” last year before ultimately joining LIV Golf.

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What is the format for LIV Golf tournaments?

LIV Golf tournaments will consist of three 18-hole rounds taking place over three days. They will feature a traditional stroke play format with a shotgun start, where all golfers begin play at the same time on different holes, and no cuts.

While an individual winner will be crowned, there is also a team aspect to the competitions. The 48-man field is divided into 12 teams of four. Before each event, 12 league-appointed captains will pick three players apiece in a snake draft. 

For the first two rounds of a tournament, a team’s two best scores will count. For the final round, a team’s three best scores will count. The team with the lowest combined score at the end of three rounds will win the team portion of the tournament.

Which players have joined LIV Golf?

While Mickelson and Johnson are the headliners, the LIV Golf field for the opening event also includes five other major winners: Sergio Garcia, Louis Oosthuizen, Martin Kaymer, Charl Schwartzel and Graeme McDowell.

And two more major winners, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed, reportedly are set to join for the league’s second tournament.

Kevin Na, Talor Gooch, Richard Bland, Shaun Norris, Matt Jones, Pablo Larrazabal, Sam Horsfield, Lee Westwood, Ryosuke Kinoshita, Scott Vincent, Ian Poulter, Hudson Swafford and Bernd Wiesberger, all of whom were in the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking as of June 5, are in the field for the inaugural 48-man tournament as well.

You can check out the full field and list of teams for the LIV Golf Invitational here .

What are Dustin Johnson’s and Phil Mickelson’s LIV Golf contracts?

Johnson received a contract worth around $125 million to join LIV Golf, according to the Daily Telegraph . And Mickelson got an even bigger deal, with the New York Post reporting it's worth approximately $200 million. For context, Mickelson’s career earnings with the PGA Tour are $94.96 million and Johnson’s are $74.3 million.

Norman said LIV Golf made a high-nine-figure offer to Tiger Woods , but the 15-time major champion turned it down.

What are the LIV Golf payouts? 

Golfers will earn additional money in the tournaments, too. The eight events scheduled for this year will award $255 million in total prize money. The first seven are regular-season events with each having a $25 million purse and a $4 million prize for the individual winner (the rest of the field will split a $16 million pot with the last-place finisher getting $120,000). The top three teams will then split a $5 million pot, with $3 million going to the winner, $1.5 million to second place and $500,000 to third place.

For comparison, this year's Masters and PGA Championship -- two of the four majors -- each had a $15 million purse with a $2.7 million first-place prize. The projected 48th-place payout at the Masters was $41,100 and at the PGA Championship it was $35,000.

The top three individual golfers at the end of the LIV Golf regular season will split a $30 million bonus, with $18 million going to the top golfer, $8 million to second place and $4 million to third place. Finally, the eighth and final tournament will be a championship with a $50 million purse.

What is the LIV Golf schedule?

As previously mentioned, there are eight tournaments scheduled for this year. Ten tournaments are planned for 2023 and 14 are planned for 2024 and 2025.

Five of the eight 2022 events will be held in the United States, with Boston, Miami and Portland among the host sites. Here’s a look at this year’s slate:

St Albans, England, Centurion Club: June 9-11

Portland, Oregon, Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club : June 30-July 2

Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump National Golf Club Bedminster: July 29-31

 Boston, Massachusetts, The International: Sept. 2-4

Chicago, Illinois, Rich Harvest Farms: Sept. 16-18

Bangkok, Thailand, Stonehill Golf Club: Oct. 7-9

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Royal Greens Golf Club: Oct. 14-16

Miami, Florida, Trump National Doral: Oct. 27-30

Can LIV Golf players also play in majors?

The PGA Tour and DP World Tour did not grant releases for any of its members to partake in the LIV Golf Invitational. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan even threatened to take away membership cards from those who play in the rival league.

At least six golfers – Johnson, Garcia, Oosthuizen, Schwartzel, Na and Branden Grace – have already resigned their PGA Tour memberships. Those who don’t (like Mickelson, who said he doesn’t plan to give up his Tour membership) are likely at least looking at a suspension for playing without a release.

So what does all of this mean for the majors? Well, the PGA Tour doesn’t run the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open or Open Championship. So the decision of whether or not LIV golfers can compete will be up to the governing bodies that oversee each respective major. 

The United States Golf Association, which runs this month’s U.S. Open, has already ruled that LIV golfers who have qualified, which includes Mickelson and Johnson, will be allowed to play at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. 

The fourth and final major of 2022 is the Open Championship in July. A spokesperson for the R&A, which oversees the Open Championship, told GOLF.com last week “we haven’t commented on it and don’t plan to as it stands” regarding the matter.

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Jon Rahm's victory in season-ending LIV Golf event adds $22 million to his bank account

Quinn Harris

When Jon Rahm made his highly-publicized move to LIV Golf last December, it is unlikely he pictured the following scenario—that he would claim the league’s season-long individual championship at LIV Golf Chicago on the same day that Rory McIlroy would be trying to win the DP World Tour’s Irish Open at Royal County Down in Northern Ireland, as the Solheim Cup built to a dramatic finish.

With discussions between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf’s financiers, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF), ongoing, men’s professional golf remains fragmented. The PGA Tour, in June last year, created a framework agreement that aims to bring PIF on as a minority investor. This past week, officials from the PGA Tour met with representatives from PIF in New York. With no news coming from those discussions, and with LIV Golf Chicago and the Irish Open, two entertaining tournaments playing out on either side of the Atlantic, the game seems no closer to unification.

Rahm, meanwhile, pressed on with his new circuit. His 2024 season on LIV was nothing short of spectacular and was a yearlong reminder that golf fans deserve to see the world’s best players more often than just the four majors. Rahm won twice and finished inside the top 10 in all 12 of his LIV starts, eight inside the top five.

His results put him in pole position on the points standings entering LIV’s final event at Bolingbrook Golf Club, three points ahead of Joaquin Niemann. While Niemann was the only other player who could steal the title from Rahm, several other big names, Tyrrell Hatton and Sergio Garcia, were trying to claim the tournament itself.

But Rahm put them to the sword when he birdied the par-3 17th to ensure he stood on the 18th tee with a three-shot lead. When an $18-million bonus is on the line, a three-shot cushion is far more comforting than two. Rahm made par and shot 66 to finish three rounds at 11 under par.

“Today was a special day in many ways,” Rahm said. “I woke up really nervous today, as I thought I would, and even warming up, I told [caddie] Adam [Hayes], 'man, I'm nervous.'”

He didn’t look nervous as he held off runners-up Niemann (66) and Garcia (68), while Hatton (65) was fourth.

Rahm earned $22 million— $4 million for LIV Chicago and $18 million for the season-long title—meaning his earnings from LIV in 2024 were $37.9 million.

But LIV’s place within golf’s ecosystem remains a puzzle that it needs to solve. Niemann, second on its standings, is not in any of the four majors next year because the league does not receive world ranking points for its 54-hole events.

After the LIV team finale next week, attention will soon turn to the status of the framework agreement and the outcome of those New York discussions.

Rahm’s move to LIV from the PGA Tour was hoped by some to accelerate those discussions. That has not happened yet.

“I wouldn't say bumpy road, but definitely windy,” Rahm said when asked to describe his first season on LIV. “I made the decision to join LIV Golf, fully confident that I can make an impact, and you deal with the emotions of that decision, the impact of the media, good and bad, and then going out to the season trying to win.”

Meanwhile, stars from the PGA Tour and LIV will play against each other in December in a made-for-television match, with McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler facing Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau in Las Vegas.

Rahm, while he won’t be part of that match, welcomed such developments.

“Ever since I joined, and I believe before, I felt like we should do what we can to … we have an opportunity to create a new stage for golf in the world of sports that could be better than what we had before, and I feel like we should take advantage of this situation,” Rahm said in his pre-tournament press conference in Chicago.

LIV Golf did well to fight for attention in 2024, but it remains just one player in a fragmented market. Hopefully for golf fans, those players are soon on the same team.

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LIV Golf tees off in Bolingbrook with big names, thousands of spectators

The liv golf tour, though, is not without controversy., by jc navarrete • published september 13, 2024 • updated on september 13, 2024 at 6:04 pm.

If the PGA makes golf fans think of traditional golf claps and high-class feels, LIV Golf throws it all out the window.

Instead of quiet tee boxes, spectators get House music blaring out of the speakers as some of the world's best athletes in the sport tee off.

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"I was against LIV golf for the longest time, but when it was coming to Chicago, it's picking up steam; I had to see what it’s all about," said Josh Seaver a fan at the Bolingbrook tournament.

The tournament brings in big names like Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and dozens of others. The 54-player field at LIV Chicago features 14 major champions with dozens of victories among them.

"Oh, I love it. Just the experience [of] seeing some of the top players in the world, Bryson, Rahm; it’s just a great experience. It's one of the best golf events you can go to," said Joe Ruso, a fan.

The tournament is expected to draw tens of thousands over the weekend, something city officials in Bolingbrook are excited about.

A city with a population of roughly 75,000 may easily see half that number at the tournament over the weekend, and local businesses are looking to cash in on the buzz. 

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"People already started coming in; we prepared ourselves for more customers," said Tina Scola, manager at Salerno's Pizza.

While so much of the attention this weekend will be on the green and who takes home the bulk of the $20 million purse, the tournament also offers more outside the game for the whole family: a driving range, a putting green, basketball hoops, a free concert and even baby goats to pet.

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The tour, though, is not without controversy. LIV Golf gets its financial backing through Saudi Arabia's investment fund, which does not sit well with everyone, considering the country's human rights record.

LIV Golf will be in Chicago from Sept. 13-Sept. 15, with tickets still available for fans to watch some of the best players in the world.

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PGA and LIV Merger Deal Increases Saudi Arabia’s Influence in Golf

The partnership is a major victory for Saudi ambitions in sports, but the announcement split players. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan described his meeting with golfers late in the afternoon as “heated.”

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Alan Blinder

The alliance between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf ends a bitter fight in the sport.

The PGA Tour, the dominant force in men’s professional golf for generations, and LIV Golf, which made its debut just last year and is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in Saudi money, will together form an industry powerhouse that is expected to transform the sport, executives announced Tuesday.

The rival circuits had spent the last year clashing in public, and the tentative agreement that emerged from secret negotiations blindsided virtually all of the world’s top players, agents and broadcasters. The deal would create a new company that would consolidate the PGA Tour’s prestige, television contracts and marketing muscle with Saudi money.

The new company came together so quickly that it does not yet even have a name and is referred to in the agreement documents simply as “NewCo.” It would be controlled by the PGA Tour but significantly financed by the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund . The fund’s governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan, will be the new company’s chairman.

The deal, coming when Saudi Arabia is increasingly looking to assert itself on the world stage as something besides one of the world’s largest oil producers, has implications beyond sports. The Saudi money will give the new organization greater clout, but it comes with the troubling association of the kingdom’s human rights record, its treatment of women and accusations that it was responsible for the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a leading critic.

The agreement does not immediately amount to a Saudi takeover of professional golf, but it positions the nation’s top officials to have enormous sway over the game. It also represents an escalation in Saudi ambitions in sports, moving beyond its corporate sponsorship of Formula 1 racing and ownership of an English soccer team into a place where it can exert influence over the highest reaches of a global game.

“Everybody is in shock,” said Paul Azinger, the winner of the 1993 P.G.A. Championship and the lead golf analyst for NBC Sports. “The future of golf is forever different.”

Since LIV began play last year, it has used some of the richest contracts and prize money in the sport’s history to entice players away from the PGA Tour. Until Tuesday morning, the PGA Tour had been publicly uncompromising: LIV was a threat to the game and a glamorous way for Saudi Arabia to rehabilitate its reputation. The PGA Tour’s commissioner, Jay Monahan, had even avoided uttering LIV’s name in public.

But a series of springtime meetings in London, Venice and San Francisco led to a framework agreement that stunned the golf industry for its timing and scope. Monahan, who defended the decision as a sound business choice and said he had accepted that he would be accused of hypocrisy, met with PGA Tour players in Toronto on Tuesday in what he called an “intense” and “certainly heated” exchange.

The deal, though, proved right the predictions that there could eventually be an uneasy patching-up of the sport’s fractures. The PGA Tour’s board, which includes a handful of players like Patrick Cantlay and Rory McIlroy, must still approve the agreement, a process that could be tumultuous.

It was only a year ago this week that LIV Golf held its inaugural tournament, prompting the PGA Tour to suspend players who competed in it. But by the end of the year, even though the circuit was locked in an antitrust battle with the PGA Tour and its stars were confronting uncertain futures at the sport’s marquee competitions, LIV had some of the biggest names in golf on its payroll. Its players have included the major tournament champions Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith.

The players were familiar, but LIV’s 54-hole events — the name derives from the Roman numerals for that number — were jarring, with blaring music and golfers in shorts not facing the specter of being unceremoniously cut midway through. The PGA Tour, meanwhile, defended its 72-hole events, where low performers do not compete into the weekend, as rigorous athletic tests that adhered to the traditions of an ancient game.

The less-starchy LIV concept drew plenty of headlines, and the league won even greater attention because of its links to former President Donald J. Trump, who hosted LIV tournaments and emerged as one of its most enthusiastic boosters. The league, however, was still largely dependent on the largess of a wealth fund that had been warned that a rebel golf circuit was no certain financial bonanza. It stumbled to a television deal with the CW Network, and big corporate sponsorships were scarce.

The league accrued some athletic successes, even as its players faced the risk of eventual exclusion from golf’s major tournaments, which are run by organizations that are close to, but distinct from, the PGA Tour.

Last month, Koepka won the P.G.A. Championship , which was organized by the P.G.A. of America. Koepka, Mickelson and Patrick Reed were among the LIV players who fared especially well at the Masters Tournament, administered by Augusta National Golf Club, in early April.

Within weeks of the Masters, though, after a run of mutual overtures and months of bravado, PGA Tour and Saudi executives were convening in secret to see if there was a way toward some kind of coexistence, in part, Monahan suggested, because he did not think it was “right or sustainable to have this tension in our sport.” The result was an agreement that gives the tour the upper hand but is poised to make permanent Saudi Arabia’s influence over golf’s starry ranks.

Monahan, the tour’s commissioner, is in line to be the chief executive of the new company, which will include an executive committee stocked with tour loyalists. But al-Rumayyan's presence, as well as the promise that the wealth fund can play a pivotal role in how the company is ultimately funded, means that Saudi Arabia could do much to shape the sport’s future.

In a memorandum to players on Tuesday, Monahan insisted that his tour’s “history, legacy and pro-competitive model not only remains intact, but is supercharged for the future.”

That was hardly a consensus view. Mackenzie Hughes, a PGA Tour player, acidly noted on Twitter that there was “nothing like finding out through Twitter that we’re merging with a tour that we said we’d never do that with.” And Terry Strada, the chairwoman of 9/11 Families United, who had assailed the Saudi foray into golf because of misgivings about the kingdom after the 2001 terrorist attacks, said Monahan and the tour had “become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation.”

The tour and the wealth fund both had incentives to forge an agreement, besides the prospect of concluding a chaotic chapter marked by allegations of betrayal and greed.

LIV had faced setbacks in civil litigation against the PGA Tour that threatened to drag al-Rumayyan into sworn testimony and force the wealth fund to turn over documents that could have become public. The tour has been under scrutiny from Justice Department antitrust investigators , who had examined in recent months whether the tour’s tactics to counter LIV had undermined golf’s labor market.

The litigation between the tour and LIV will end under the terms of the agreement announced Tuesday. The fate of the antitrust inquiry was less clear — experts said the new arrangement would not automatically immunize the tour from potential legal trouble — but LIV’s standing as its leading cheerleader evaporated.

For this year, the world’s professional golfers are unlikely to see seismic changes in their schedules or playing formats, with LIV and the PGA Tour expected to hold competitions as planned. There may be far more consequential changes later, though, chiefly because the new PGA Tour-controlled company will determine whether and how LIV’s team-oriented format might be blended with the tour’s more familiar offerings.

LIV players are expected to have pathways to apply for reinstatement to the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour, circuits from which some had resigned when faced with fines and suspensions, but they could face residual penalties for leaving in the first place. Through a spokeswoman, Greg Norman, the two-time major tournament champion who has been LIV’s commissioner, declined to be interviewed on Tuesday.

No matter what comes of the LIV brand or style, Tuesday’s announcement is a singular milestone in the Saudi quest to become a titan in global sports. With the deal, the kingdom can move, at least in golf, from a well-heeled disrupter to a seat of power at the establishment’s table.

Saudi officials have repeatedly denied that political or public relations motives undergird their eager pursuit of sports investments. Instead, they have framed the investments as necessary for shoring up the resource-rich kingdom’s finances and to enhance its standing on the world stage.

Beyond its imprint on golf , the wealth fund previously purchased Newcastle United, a potent English soccer team, and a company with close ties to the fund has eyed investments in cricket, tennis and e-sports. And Saudi Arabia has tried to become a host of major sporting events, from boxing matches to its pending bid to host the World Cup in 2030.

But when Saudi Arabia barged into golf last year, it was nearly unthinkable that al-Rumayyan would so swiftly become a formal ally of Monahan and the sport’s other power brokers.

“Anybody who thought about it logically would see that something was going to have to happen,” Adam Hadwin, a PGA Tour player, said on Tuesday. It was inconceivable, he suggested, that the world’s best players would only compete against each other at the four major tournaments, but an armistice “happening this quick and in this way is surprising.”

For much of the last year, LIV players have deflected questions about Saudi Arabia’s history on human rights and other matters that helped make the kingdom’s surge into golf an international flashpoint. They were, they often said, merely golfers and entertainers.

Until Tuesday, Monahan had tried to use the stain of Saudi Arabia to undercut the new league and its golfers.

“I would ask any player that has left, or any player that would ever consider leaving: Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?” he said last year.

On Tuesday, when Monahan declared that the leaders of golf’s factions had “realized that we were better off together than we were fighting or apart,” it was his tour’s players facing questions about lucrative connections to Riyadh.

“I’ve dedicated my entire life to being at golf’s highest level,” Hadwin, the tour player, said. “I’m not about to stop playing golf because the entity that I play for has joined forces with the Saudi government.”

Reporting was contributed by Andrew Das , Kevin Draper , Lauren Hirsch , Eric Lipton , Victor Mather , Ahmed Al Omran and Bill Pennington .

Kevin Draper

The PGA Tour commissioner acknowledges secrecy and hurdles on the deal.

Tuesday morning’s announcement from the PGA Tour hailed its deal to merge operations with LIV Golf as a “landmark agreement to unify the game” and end the contentious litigation between the competing golf tours.

But when Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, finally spoke to news reporters eight hours later, the agreement sounded far more tentative. He described his meeting with players about the agreement as “intense” and “certainly heated.” Monahan also acknowledged that most of the PGA Tour’s policy board — which is made up of five independent directors and five golfers — was kept in the dark about the tour’s negotiations with LIV over the last seven weeks.

He called the deal a “framework agreement” and said there were numerous issues that needed to be worked through before a “definitive agreement” was presented to the policy board to ratify, raising the possibility that it could be rejected and golf’s cold war could stretch on.

Among the issues that Monahan said were still unsettled included the future of LIV itself as an independent golf tour; the pathway for LIV players to rejoin the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour in Europe; whether PGA Tour players who declined to join LIV would somehow be financially compensated; and whether LIV players would have to forfeit some of their compensation.

“Ultimately, everything needs to be considered,” Monahan said.

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Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, said that many members of the PGA Tour policy board — more or less its board of directors — were kept in the dark about the negotiations. The agreement reached with LIV is only a framework agreement; once there is a finalized agreement, the policy board, which includes players, will have to vote to approve it.

Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, says there is no definitive agreement on whether PGA Tour players will somehow be made whole for money they turned down when they declined to join LIV, or whether LIV players will somehow have to give up money to rejoin the PGA Tour. “Ultimately, everything needs to be considered,” Monahan said.

Monahan is being asked repeatedly about his past criticism of the morals of taking LIV and Saudi money. “I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite,” the PGA Tour commissioner said. “Anytime I said anything, I said it based on the information I had at the moment, and based on someone trying to compete for the PGA Tour and our players. I accept those criticisms. But circumstances do change.”

The PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan on his just-completed meeting with players: “I would describe the meeting as intense. Certainly heated.”

More details about the merger, and how PGA Tour players feel about it, should be emerging soon. Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, is hosting a players meeting in Toronto at the site of this week’s RBC Open. After that, Monahan will take questions from the news media.

The talks of a merger began in secret meetings after the Masters in April.

For month after month, the PGA Tour and LIV Golf were content to bludgeon one another in news conferences and court filings. But in the weeks after the Masters Tournament in early April, rival executives began a series of private meetings.

Convening first in London and then Venice and ultimately San Francisco, PGA Tour leaders met with representatives of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, including Yasir al-Rumayyan, the golf fiend who is the wealth fund’s governor. According to a person familiar with the discussions, who insisted on anonymity to describe private talks, the sides effectively reached an agreement around Memorial Day but kept word of it secret from even leading executives and players until Tuesday.

The nature of the agreement — for now — keeps the PGA Tour in control, thanks to a provision that allows it to have a majority of board seats in the new company that will house the tour and LIV Golf. The wealth fund will control a minority stake in the new company, but its exclusive right to invest in it going forward opens the door for Riyadh to grow its influence in the years ahead.

But in the interim, the fate of the LIV Golf league itself appears to rest most clearly with the PGA Tour and its allies, with the new company expected to undertake an extensive analysis of the LIV format to determine whether and how it can coexist with the long-dominant tour.

A group of 9/11 relatives called the PGA Tour’s planned merger with LIV a ‘betrayal.’

A group of relatives of people killed on Sept. 11 issued a blistering criticism of the planned merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series and the PGA Tour, calling the tour and its commissioner “paid Saudi shills” for agreeing to it.

Relatives of 9/11 victims have been vocal in their opposition to the Saudi-backed LIV series almost since its inception. Most of the hijackers of the planes used in the 2001 attacks were Saudi. The 9/11 families have saved some of their harshest criticisms for those who have taken part in LIV events and hosted its tournaments. The latter group includes former President Donald J. Trump and his family, who were urged last year to cancel an event at a Trump golf course in New Jersey.

On Tuesday, one group of relatives, called 9/11 Families United, declared that its members were “shocked and deeply offended” by the merger deal. In a statement, the group called it a “betrayal” by the PGA Tour and its commissioner, Jay Monahan.

“The PGA and Monahan appear to have become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation,” said the 9/11 Families United chairman, Terry Strada.

Critics of Saudi Arabia frequently deride its investments in teams and leagues as “sportswashing” and say it is a thinly veiled effort to rehabilitate the kingdom’s reputation amid accusations that it has financed terrorism and murdered a Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi .

Strada criticized Monahan for “co-opting” the 9/11 community last year in the PGA Tour’s initial and strident opposition to the Saudi-backed golf tour, only to cut a merger deal this week.

“Mr. Monahan talked last summer about knowing people who lost loved ones on 9/11, then wondered aloud on national television whether LIV golfers ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour,” Strade wrote. “They do now — as does he. PGA Tour leaders should be ashamed of their hypocrisy and greed.”

Members of Congress from both parties weighed in.

“So weird. PGA officials were in my office just months ago talking about how the Saudis’ human rights record should disqualify them from having a stake in a major American sport,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, in a message posted on Twitter . “I guess maybe their concerns weren’t really about human rights?”

And Representative Chip Roy, a Republican of Texas, added : “In the end, it’s always about the money. Saudi Arabia just bought themselves a one-world golf government.”

During the 2020 presidential campaign, President Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for human rights abuses, most notably the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia and was a columnist for The Washington Post who wrote critically of the Saudi crown prince and the country’s government.

As one of his first foreign policy actions in office, Mr. Biden authorized the release of a U.S. intelligence report that said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved the killing.

Mr. Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents while visiting Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018 to get documents for his upcoming wedding. He was strangled by Saudi agents and then dismembered.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken happened to be in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks this week with Saudi leaders and other Gulf state officials about the possibility of the kingdom normalizing ties with Israel. It wasn’t clear if the PGA-LIV merger would be a part of discussions.

An earlier version of this blog item incorrectly stated Chris Murphy’s position in Congress. He is a senator, not a representative.

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The deal sets up a structure combining nonprofit and for-profit entities.

The merger establishes an unusual structure for how golf will be governed going forward.

The PGA Tour, which is a nonprofit organization, will remain that way and retain oversight over the “sanctioning of events and administration of the competition and rules” for the tour, according to the release announcing the merger. Basically, the PGA Tour will still have full control over how its tournaments are played.

But all of the PGA Tour’s commercial businesses and rights — such as the rights to televise its tournaments, which garner hundreds of millions of dollars annually — will be owned by a new, as-of-yet unnamed for-profit entity. That entity will also own LIV Golf as well as the commercial and business rights of the PGA European Tour, known as the DP World Tour.

The board of directors for the new for-profit entity will be chaired by Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, who also oversees LIV. Three other members of the board’s executive committee will be current members of the PGA Tour’s board, and the tour will appoint the majority of the board and hold a majority voting interest.

With the PGA Tour controlling the for-profit holding company and remaining in charge of administering its own tournaments, it may seem as though the PGA Tour will forever remain the dominant voice in men’s professional golf. But that could change.

The Public Investment Fund will invest “billions,” according to al-Rumayyan, into the new for-profit entity, and it will also hold “the exclusive right to further invest in the new entity, including a right of first refusal on any capital that may be invested in the new entity, including into the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and DP World Tour,” according to the release.

If the Public Investment Fund invests more money — because the economy goes south and sponsors pull out of tournaments, for instance — in the for-profit entity, it will surely demand more board seats and greater voting rights, potentially tilting control of men’s professional golf toward Saudi Arabia.

The merger doesn’t end the U.S. antitrust inquiry into the PGA Tour.

What does this merger mean for the Department of Justice’s antitrust inquiry into the PGA Tour ? In short: Not much.

For about a year, cheered on by LIV Golf, the Justice Department has been investigating the tight-knit relationship between the PGA Tour and other powerful entities in golf, and whether there has been any collusion within the Official World Golf Rankings. A number of high-profile LIV players, like Phil Mickelson, have been interviewed in the inquiry, and lawyers representing the PGA Tour met with Justice Department officials in Washington as recently as last month.

But while Tuesday’s merger will end litigation between LIV and the PGA Tour, it will not necessarily change the Justice Department’s case. The department’s inquiry has looked into allegations of past conduct; if there was any illegal conduct, a merger does not prevent the PGA Tour from being punished for it.

“The announcement of a merger doesn’t forgive past sins,” said Bill Baer, who led the Justice Department’s antitrust division during the Obama administration.

In fact, the merger could cause the Justice Department to even more closely scrutinize the PGA Tour, for a separate but related reason.

The federal government, through the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, reviews over 1,000 mergers for approval each year. It is not yet clear which agency will lead the review of the PGA Tour and LIV’s proposed merger, but if it is the Justice Department, it will certainly scrutinize what looks to be on its face “a merger to monopoly, eliminating competition between these two competing professional golf organizations,” Baer said.

The Department of Justice declined to comment on the merger announcement.

Victor Mather

Here is what tour leaders and players are saying about the merger.

PGA Tour officials and LIV leaders hailed the announcement on Tuesday that their competing golf series would be joining forces, but players were split on the news. Here’s what they were saying:

“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love.” — PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan , who is expected to be the chief executive of the new entity.

“There is no question that the LIV model has been positively transformative for golf. We believe there are opportunities for the game to evolve while also maintaining its storied history and tradition.” — The Public Investment Fund governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan , who will become chairman of the board of the merged tour.

“Awesome day today.” — Phil Mickelson , who left the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf.

“Nothing like finding out through Twitter that we’re merging with a tour that we said we’d never do that with.” — Mackenzie Hughes , PGA Tour player.

“Very curious how many people knew this deal was happening. About 5-7 people? Player run organization right?” — Michael Kim , PGA Tour player.

“This is one of the saddest days in the history of professional golf. I do believe that the governing bodies, the entities, the professional entities, have sacrificed their principles for profits.” — Brandel Chamblee , a Golf Channel analyst who has been sharply critical of the LIV Tour.

“Welfare check on Chamblee.” — LIV golfer Brooks Koepka , referring to Chamblee, who last week declared that “any yielding to or agreement with them is a deal with a murderous dictator.”

“Now that we’re all friends, is it too late for us to workshop some of these team names?” — Max Homa , PGA Tour player, referring to LIV teams like Crushers, Iron Heads and Majesticks.

While the merger is a tectonic shift for golf, nothing will change immediately in how fans watch golf. The PGA Tour, LIV Tour and DP World Tour are expected to proceed as scheduled and separately, at least through 2023. Afterward, it is unclear whether LIV will continue, and whether LIV golfers will apply to re-join the PGA Tour or DP World Tour.

Ahmed al-Omran

Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi state entity bankrolling LIV, the Public Investment Fund, said the agreement was reached after he held talks with PGA Tour officials in London. “The way we’re doing our partnership, it’s gonna be really big in many senses,” he said during an appearance on CNBC.

“We will be investing in the game of golf and doing many new things that I think will have better engagement from the players, the fans, the broadcasters, the sponsors, everyone else,” Al-Rumayyan said. He added that the PIF would invest “billions of dollars” into the sport without giving a specific timeline. “Whatever it takes,” he said.

Eric Lipton

Trump praises the PGA and LIV golf merger.

The Trump family, which has been the host of LIV tournaments in the United States and a big booster of the series’ efforts to break away from the PGA Tour, expects to continue to see tournaments played at its golf courses once the merger is complete.

“This merger is a wonderful thing for the game of golf,” Eric Trump said in an interview on Tuesday. “I truly believe that.”

His father, Donald J. Trump, also praised the deal. On Truth Social, the former president’s social media platform and personal megaphone, he wrote: “Great news from LIV Golf. A big, beautiful, and glamorous deal for the wonderful world of golf.”

The LIV series has been a boon for the Trump family, which lost major tournaments after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the capitol, including the one of golf’s four majors, the 2022 P.G.A. Championship. That tournament had been scheduled to be played at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey, but its organizer, the P.G.A. of America, stripped the club of the hosting rights days after the capitol attack.

Last July, just before the first LIV tournament was played at Trump National Bedminster, Mr. Trump predicted that the series would ultimately merge, and he suggested that players that stayed loyal to the PGA Tour were making a financial mistake.

“All of those that remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA, in all its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you will get nothing but a big ‘thank you’ from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social in July 2022 . “If you don’t take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were.”

LIV has tournaments scheduled this year at Trump-owned golf courses in Florida and New Jersey, and it just completed a tournament at a Trump course in Virginia. Negotiations are underway for more potential tournaments at Trump-owned facilities next year, though it is now unclear if the series will continue in its current format.

When asked if the Trump family had played a role in urging the PGA and LIV groups to merge, Eric Trump on Tuesday declined to comment. But he did say that the family has close friends developed over many years in the golf world, including those associated with the PGA and LIV groups.

Ahmed Al Omran

reporting from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

The merger is seen as a victory for Saudi Arabia.

The deal to merge the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, the rival league financed by billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, was seen as a victory for Saudi Arabia on multiple levels.

The merger marked the greatest success to date of Saudi Arabia’s ambition to become a player in global sports. From the outset, its billion-dollar play for control of golf seemed like nothing less than an attempt to seize control of an entire sport.

Now, by merging with the PGA Tour, the oil-rich kingdom has gained a foothold that guarantees it outsize influence in the game’s future. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi state entity bankrolling LIV, the Public Investment Fund, will become chairman of the new golf organization. The sovereign wealth fund will have right of first refusal on new investments in the merged tour, according to the statement announcing the merger .

The rival tours had clashed for months in litigation that will now draw to a close, so the deal will protect Mr. Al-Rumayyan, a golf aficionado, from the prospect of being deposed and scrutinized in American courtrooms. He also serves as chairman of Aramco, the Saudi state oil company, which has been a major sponsor of Formula 1 racing.

The deal could also lend legitimacy to the kingdom’s entry as a major player in global sports in the form of a serious partner and not just a well-funded disrupter.

Critics have accused Saudi Arabia of using its spending power in sports to distract from its poor human rights record, but Saudi officials have repeatedly rejected these allegations.

At the same time, this deal could serve as a blueprint for future moves as the kingdom grows its ambitions to further expand its influence and reach in sports and entertainment. ‌‌

By establishing a start-up golf tour that rose rapidly to become enough of a threat for the PGA Tour and bring them to the negotiation table, Saudi Arabia could see potential to do the same in other arenas. Under the terms of the deal, the Public Investment Fund holds veto power on bringing any new investors, giving themselves insurance from any possible dilution of their power in the new arrangement.

The sovereign wealth fund has already managed to achieve a quick return for their investment in Newcastle United as the English soccer club qualified for the UEFA Champions League merely 18 months after it was purchased.

The announcement of the merger with the PGA Tour comes less than one year since LIV’s first event in June 2022 .

In addition to soccer and golf, Saudi Arabia is eyeing investments in cricket, tennis and e-sports via Savvy Games Group, which is backed by the sovereign wealth fund. The group plans to invest $37.8 billion to make Saudi Arabia a global hub for gaming.

The kingdom has also served as host to major sports events including Formula 1 races, major boxing matches and WWE as part of plans to diversify its economy away from heavy reliance on oil.

Saudi Arabia is making a major push in soccer, too.

Golf is not the only sport where Saudi Arabia is looking to increase its influence: It is also making a major play in soccer.

Its most prominent investment to date was its purchase last year of the English Premier League team Newcastle United, a deal that gave the kingdom, through its huge Public Investment Fund, a foothold in the world’s richest soccer competition. But Saudi Arabia is also bidding to host soccer’s World Cup in 2030, and this week the country’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, announced that the PIF would invest more than $1 billion in the country’s domestic league in hopes of making it one of the 10 best leagues in the world.

As Tariq Panja and Ahmed Al Omran reported in The Times last week, the plan is focused on attracting more than a dozen of the world’s best players to the Saudi league by offering them some of the richest deals in sports history. Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time world player of the year, moved to Saudi Arabia in January, and reports of nine-figure offers to others — including Lionel Messi — are rampant. The French striker Karim Benzema accepted one this week : He will join the Jeddah-based club Al-Ittihad in a multiyear deal that will make him one of the world’s best-paid players.

Similar in ambition to the Saudi-financed LIV series in golf, the kingdom’s plan for soccer involves the PIF. This week it took a controlling stake in four of the Saudi league’s biggest clubs in what appears to be a centralized effort — supported at the highest levels of the Saudi state — to turn the country’s domestic league, a footnote on the global soccer stage, into a destination for top talent.

The basics of the sweeping golf merger.

After two years of sniping, lawsuits and ill will, the major men’s golf tours agreed to merge on Tuesday. The blockbuster announcement came as a surprise given the fierce competition and legal action among the tours. Here’s what we know, and don’t know.

What happened on Tuesday?

The PGA Tour, which runs golf in North America; the PGA European Tour, which is known as the DP World Tour and holds events in much of the rest of the world; and the upstart LIV Tour agreed to merge their operations.

The Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which spent billions to launch the LIV Tour, will invest in the new company, and the governor of that fund will become its chairman.

All the lawsuits among the tours will be ended as part of the deal.

How did we get here?

The LIV Tour started last year and offered big-name players from the other tours huge sums to jump ship. Many did, notably Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Cameron Smith. Some veterans like Phil Mickelson also joined. Those players were suspended from the PGA Tour as a result.

Others, including Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, did not take reported offers. Many players and officials of the PGA Tour were sharply critical of LIV, both for dividing the golf world and for associating with the Saudi government and its poor human rights record.

How will things change?

There is a lot we don’t know at this point. The LIV Tour had team events as a focus of its model, and in its statement, the PGA Tour mentioned that the tours planned to “grow team golf going forward.”

But there are many unknowns. Will the tours continue to operate separately? The statement referred only to “a cohesive schedule of events.”

Will the enormous disparity between the LIV purses and the purses on the other tours remain? Will LIV continue to hold 54-hole, three-day tournaments with shotgun starts and no cuts, while the other tours maintain their traditional four-day formats?

The PGA Tour did say that the tours would develop a process for LIV players who want to reapply for membership with the two older tours after the 2023 season.

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LIV Golf star considering sensational return to PGA Tour after superb form

Laurie canter is on the brink of making history as the first player to join the pga tour after playing in the breakaway liv golf league..

Laurie Canter is on the cusp of making history as potentially the first player from LIV Golf to secure a spot on the PGA Tour .

The British golfer initially participated in two LIV events this season as an alternate before returning to the DP World Tour, where he's been turning heads with his performances. Canter emerged victorious at the European Open in Germany back in May and has since racked up three top-10 finishes.

He's four shots behind leader Rory McIlroy at the Irish Open heading into Sunday's final round. His string of impressive results is catapulting him towards the summit of the Race to Dubai leaderboard, with the season's top-10 finishers guaranteed full PGA Tour memberships.

• Brooks Koepka agrees to Rory McIlroy reunion despite LIV Golf commitments
• PGA Tour angers 9/11 victims for 'tone deaf' Saudi meeting in New York on anniversary

Despite the controversy surrounding players who were demoted from LIV Golf in 2023, including Brooks Koepka's brother, and the recent official warning issued to Patrick Reed and other LIV Golf participants, Canter's focus remains unwavering.

Currently ranked 16th, Canter is well-positioned to break into the coveted top 10 as the season winds down to the DP World Tour Championship in November, particularly since five of the players ahead of him already have their PGA Tour cards.

After parting ways with LIV Golf, Canter expressed his ambition at The Open Championship in July, stating that securing PGA Tour membership was his primary objective.

"That would be awesome, wouldn't it? To play on the PGA Tour is something I would love to do at some point," Canter said. "Still, we've got such a long way to go. with the second half of the year.

"A lot of big-point tournaments. I kind of, to be honest, before I won, was just a little bit trying to play as well as I could out of my category, make sure I was all right for next year. It's kind of slightly moved the goalposts for me. I've got something to aim for, and that would be great."

Don't miss... LIV Golf individual champion to get diamond ring and $14m in prize money [LATEST] Donald Trump's golf club hosts 'Nazi sympathizer' who stormed Capitol [LATEST] Jon Rahm warned by 'friend' after stubborn decision risks Ryder Cup future [LATEST]

LIV has been footing the bills for players who've returned to the PGA Tour fold, like Canter and Bernd Weisberger, who have racked up fines in the hefty hundreds of thousands. Canter, while still acknowledging LIV, argues that the league and tour are not incompatible but can coexist harmoniously on the green.

"The one thing I would say is having done both, I think there's room for both," Canter stated. "I like both formats. Can I say that? Are you allowed to say that these days, like you actually like both things? I really do. I'm firmly on the middle of the fence because I actually like both."

However, Canter's journey back to the greens of the American circuit could hit a snag if he secures a PGA Tour card. He hinted to GolfWeek this June that the tour's top brass had mentioned a possible timeout penalty before his opening game.

"I would have to serve a year from the time of my final LIV event," Canter disclosed. "That would be a year after this year's LIV Las Vegas [in February]. I thought it was absurd. I've never played on the PGA Tour."

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Bryson DeChambeau says PGA Tour-LIV match is step toward 'good standing'

• Field Level Media

A planned exhibition match between PGA Tour and LIV Golf League stars offers a chance for the two sides to start reuniting the golf world, Bryson DeChambeau said Thursday.

Speaking at the Bolingbrook Golf Club ahead of the LIV Golf Chicago tournament, which begins Friday, DeChambeau said he is happy to participate in the match if it means he can help "get this game back in good standing."

DeChambeau is set to play with Brooks Koepka against Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler in a LIV Golf vs. PGA Tour affair at Las Vegas in December.

Since DeChambeau and Koepka moved to LIV Golf, the stars on each side only collide in the four major tournaments each year.

"We want to bring this game back to a place where I would say everyone has the opportunity to see the greatest play a lot more than four times a year," DeChambeau said. "I think it's a great opportunity to showcase how we evolve that over the course of time. The details are not very fully fleshed out yet."

DeChambeau, who turns 31 on Monday, fared well in those four majors in 2024. He won the U.S. Open, was second to Xander Schauffele at the PGA Championship and was tied for sixth at the Masters, won by Scheffler.

He said he hopes the chance to compete with PGA Tour players grows.

"We always wanted to have a PGA Tour and LIV sort of battle a couple years ago," he said. "We always thought that would be pretty cool and whatnot. But I think it's going to develop over the course of time and hopefully give the people what they want."

As for LIV Chicago, DeChambeau said it's vital for his team -- Crushers GC -- to have a good week ahead of the team finals next week in Dallas. Crushers has a narrow lead in the season standings over captain Jon Rahm 's Legion XIII entering play this weekend.

"It's incredibly important. It gives us some confidence for next week," said DeChambeau, captain of the Crushers team that also consists of Paul Casey , Anirban Lahiri and Charles Howell III .

"Next week is a good ball-striking test. All around, it's a championship-style golf course, so I think having our games looking fresh and ready to go into next week is important.

"I feel like I'm in a good place. I see the other teammates being in a good place. Let's just go play the best golf we possibly can and hopefully get some good momentum for next week."

Where To Watch

2024 LIV Golf Dallas team championship field: LIV Golf players, rankings

The 2024 LIV Golf Dallas team championship field is set with the passing of the typical Friday entry deadline. The LIV Golf field is set for this event, played at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas, from Sept. 20-22, 2024.

The LIV Golf Dallas team championship field is headlined by the likes of Jon Rahm , Cameron Smith , Dustin Johnson , Brooks Koepka , Bryson DeChambeau and more.

This is set to be a 52-player field is played out over three days, with this event marking the 14th tournament of the 2024 LIV Golf League schedule.

The tournament is being played in its originally intended slot, as the finaltournament of the series, with 13 teams of four taking on each other to determine a team champion. Anthony Kim and Hudson Swafford, who are not affiliated with any team and have been relegated from the league based on individual standings, will not be in the field.

We do not have Monday qualifiers for this event, which will be played Friday through Sunday.

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The alternate list for the week is set, with those players filling in based on withdrawals and availability.

The field will be playing for a $50 million purse, all based on team performance. There are two top-50 players in the Official World Golf Ranking.

2024 LIV Golf Dallas team championship field

Top 50 players in 2024 liv golf dallas team championship field, about the author.

Ryan Ballengee

Ryan Ballengee is founder and editor of Golf News Net. He has been writing and broadcasting about golf for nearly 20 years. Ballengee lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his family. He is currently a +2.6 USGA handicap, and he has covered dozens of major championships and professional golf tournaments. He likes writing about golf and making it more accessible by answering the complex questions fans have about the pro game or who want to understand how to play golf better.

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12 - 15 Sep 2024

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