Few would have ever imagined that 2025 would conclude without a deal being agreed between the PGA Tour and the owners of LIV Golf.
Ever since the framework agreement was announced in June 2023, it appeared that both the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia were determined to strike a deal which would see the game come back together.
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And confidence was high heading into this year. Speaking at the Genesis Invitational, Tiger Woods confirmed a merger was close.
It seemed like President Trump was determined to be the man to say he united the tours. The two sides met on two occasions at the White House in the hopes of finally getting a deal across the line.
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However, those discussions came to nothing. And heading into 2026, there appears to be little indication that fresh talks are on anyone’s radar.
With that, speaking on the Golf Channel Podcast, Rex Hoggard picked out the fact that talks have completely stopped as the largest shock of the year.
“The biggest surprise was that there’s no deal between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. That’s going out of left field a little bit. But the reason why is not one, but two trips to the White House to try and get this done,” he said.
“You had the President of the United States trying to broker a deal. You had everyone involved thinking that there was going to be some sort of deal. And not only did they not reach a deal, not only did we not get to a point where golf was fundamentally reunited and we don’t have this separation, this distraction that has been haunting the game for four years, but by all accounts they haven’t even spoken since that second meeting in the White House. That is a huge surprise.
“I could have seen them not coming to a deal where there was just some sort of impasse but they kept having conversations. I could’ve seen it going the other way where they started yelling at each other and there was more lawsuits. But neither one of those two extremes happened. Instead, they just picked up their balls and they went home. That to me makes no sense when everything was on the line.”
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The PGA Tour have arguably shown that they can continue without a deal. With Scottie Scheffler becoming golf’s most prolific winner since Tiger Woods, the tour is in a strong position.
LIV Golf’s momentum has arguably stalled as the years have gone by. Of course, they were always going to struggle to continue on an upwards trajectory after turning the game upside down in 2022.
But it does appear that the days of the league luring superstars away from the PGA Tour are now done.
And if they lose the likes of Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau at any stage over the coming years, LIV will find themselves in real trouble.
The PGA Tour appear to have weathered the storm LIV created and come out the other side. They would obviously benefit from having Koepka, DeChambeau and Jon Rahm back. But they are looking strong right now.
Neither looks set to go away anytime soon. However, it is surely LIV that find themselves in a more precarious position.
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