Long-running talks between the PGA and Public Investment Fund (PIF), which funds LIV Golf, could take a major step forward this week with PGA player-director Patrick Cantlay confirming a meeting with PIF representatives today.
Talks have been ongoing between the two organisations and the DP World Tour since June 6, 2023, when they shocked the sporting world by announcing a framework agreement to try and bring golf together following the divisions in the game since the launch of LIV Golf in 2022.
“Well, I’ve got to hear out what they have to say, and I will always do my best to represent the entire membership whenever I am in a meeting in that capacity,” Cantlay told SI after his final round at the Players Championship.
“I think more information is always better.”
The likes of Jon Rahm, Cameron Smith, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson have all defected to the breakaway circuit and are currently banned from playing on the PGA Tour.
There is hope that those players will have a pathway back to play prestigious PGA Tour events if an agreement is reached.
Four-time Major winner Rory McIlroy isn’t expected to attend the meeting as he is not a player director, but he welcomed the fact talks were finally happening.
"It should've happened months ago, so I am glad it's happening," said McIlroy on the talks between PGA Tour player directors and PIF.
“Hopefully that progresses conversations and gets us closer to a solution.”
It has been reported that all six player directors – Cantlay, Jordan Spieth, Peter Malnati, Adam Scott, Webb Simpson and Tiger Woods – will sit down for talks with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan and his team.
McIlory, who was a player director before resigning last year, is hopeful the players can buy into Al-Rumayyan’s vision for the game, while also hitting out at LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman, whom McIlory has clashed with on a number of occasions over the last few years.
“That fundamentally he wants to do the right thing,” said McIlroy when asked what he hopes the players take away from the meeting.
“I think I've said this before, I have spent time with Yasir and the people that have represented him in LIV I think have done him a disservice, so Norman and those guys.
“I see the two entities, and I actually think there's a really big disconnect between PIF and LIV. I think you’ve got PIF over here and LIV are sort of over here doing their own thing. So, the closer that we can get to Yasir, PIF and hopefully finalize that investment, I think that will be a really good thing.”
While there have not been no details given on what the framework agreement will eventually lead to, McIlroy and several more players have shared the vision for one unified World Tour, featuring the best players from the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and the DP World Tour.
The Northern Irishman has also suggested in recent months that he would be willing to play LIV Golf events if it were to be the “IPL of golf.”
“I would love LIV to turn into the IPL of golf,” McIlroy told the Stick to Football Podcast in January.
“They take two months of calendar. You go and do this team stuff and a bit different and is a different format.
“If they were to do something like that I would say ‘yeah that sounds like fun’ because you are working within the ecosystem.”
It remains to be seen if that idea is a possibility in the future, but with certain LIV Golf players having a contract until 2029, McIlroy admits that it could take a while for any significant changes to be made to the current eco-system.
“I think, you know, they're big on team golf and they want to see team golf survive in some way in the calendar,” said McIlroy.
“I don't think it has to necessarily look like LIV. I think in my mind you should leave the individual golf the individual golf and then you play your team golf on the sort of periphery of that.
“But, again, it's going to require patience. People have contracts at LIV up until 2028, 2029. I don't know if they're going to see that all the way out, but I definitely see LIV playing in its current form for the next couple years anyway while everything gets figured out.
“I don't think this is an overnight solution, but if we can get the investment in, then at least we can start working towards a compromise where we're not going to make everyone happy, but at least make everyone understand why we're doing what we're doing.”
