The futures of both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf look vastly different heading into 2026 when compared with how many expected the 2025 season to play out.
Heading into this past year, it appeared almost inevitable that the two biggest tours in the men’s game would reach a deal which would change the golfing landscape once again.
President Trump seemed determined to be the man to bring golf back together. Meanwhile, Tiger Woods confirmed that a merger was imminent at the Genesis Invitational.
Despite the two sides meeting at the White House, however, no deal was agreed. And it seemed that talks between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia stopped altogether.
The current stance of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf concerning a merger
It does appear that both tours are content to continue on their separate paths. Rory McIlroy recently said he was happy with the PGA Tour’s current direction.
Meanwhile, Bryson DeChambeau expressed some doubt as to whether reunification would ever happen as things stand.
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And it appears that DeChambeau was right to be pessimistic. Speaking on Golf Channel, Todd Lewis claimed that there are no plans on either side to start up talks again anytime soon.
“It’s funny. Eamon, I know you were with me when that White House meeting was happening and we were ready to say there’s a framework agreement ready to go and there’s going to be players from LIV Golf that are going to be competing in The Players Championship, which was a few weeks later. That obviously just blew up,” he said.
“It seems to me, right now, from what I am feeling and hearing that these entities are just going to keep going their own path. And there really is zero talk, I mean zero talk between the PGA Tour and PIF, LIV Golf about maybe getting together for a meeting just to talk about things and see what we can do down the road.
“So it seems as if the tour is going the direction they’re going under new leadership, and yes, LIV Golf has a new CEO [Scott O’Neil] as well. It seems to me that there is nothing in the mix at all in regards to both of these entities trying to come together, at least right now.”
Why it would be naive to assume the PGA Tour and LIV Golf have cut off almost all contact
Of course, history tells us that it would be dangerous to assume that there is absolutely nothing going on behind the scenes.
No one saw the framework agreement coming in June 2023. It was a moment which left the golfing world stunned, with many of the biggest names in the game having no idea that Jay Monahan and Yasir Al-Rumayyan would be sat side by side, stating their intention to bring the sport back together.
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Monahan has since been replaced by Brian Rolapp at the top of the PGA Tour structure. But that does not necessarily mean that his stance will be drastically different.
Rolapp has said he will do whatever is best for the PGA Tour. You could certainly argue that having the likes of DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka around would be a huge boost.
He is also an outsider, having joined from the NFL. So he will be able to take a less emotional view.
Clearly, the PGA Tour is in a good position. There is a lot less panic than there seemed to be in June 2023.
However, the last few years have shown that ruling anything out would simply be incredibly naive.
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