More than three years after the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced a framework to merge, there is still no PGA Tour and LIV Golf merger. The two sides remain at an impasse, the PIF has announced it will stop funding LIV Golf after the 2026 season, and the PGA Tour is operating independently through a new for-profit company backed by American sports owners. As of mid-2026, both organizations have publicly stated that a deal is not necessary for their continued operations.1
Why the Deal Never Closed
The original framework agreement was signed on May 30, 2023, and announced on June 6, 2023. It was non-binding, set to expire on December 31, 2023, and it did. That deadline passed without definitive agreements.
Talks continued anyway. In March 2025, the PIF proposed a $1.5 billion investment into PGA Tour Enterprises, with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan asking for a co-chairman role on the board. The offer came with a condition: LIV Golf would continue to operate under its existing team-based format and schedule. The PGA Tour rejected it. A unified circuit that kept LIV intact was, in the Tour’s view, a nonstarter.
On February 20, 2025, the parties met at the White House for a four-hour session with President Donald Trump, Al-Rumayyan, then-commissioner Jay Monahan, Tiger Woods, and Adam Scott. Participants called it a “constructive working session” and issued a joint statement pledging to move “as quickly as possible.” Nothing followed. No reported meetings between the PGA Tour and PIF have taken place since late February 2025.
The PIF Pulls Out of LIV Golf
On April 29, 2026, the PIF officially informed LIV Golf it would stop funding the league at the end of the 2026 season, saying the “substantial investment required” was no longer consistent with its current investment strategy. Al-Rumayyan stepped down as LIV Golf’s board chairman the same day.
The financial picture explains the exit. Saudi Arabia has invested more than $5 billion in LIV Golf since the league launched in 2022, with projections that the total could reach $6 billion by the end of 2026. Annual losses have been estimated between $500 million and $600 million, and the league reportedly lost $624 million in 2024 alone. Each LIV event reportedly costs about $40 million to stage. Analysts have suggested profitability is five to ten years away.
LIV moved quickly to stand up an independent structure. Turnaround specialist Gene Davis was appointed chairman of a new Independent Directors Committee, with strategic advisor Jon Zinman alongside him. The league retained investment bank Ducera Partners and consulting firm AlixPartners to build a new business plan and find investors. LIV is trying to raise between $250 million and $350 million in new capital and shift to what it calls a “diversified, multi-partner investment model,” including potential equity sales tied to its 13 teams. The league says 10 of those teams are expected to be profitable in 2026 and that revenue is up over 100 percent year over year.
The runway is still narrow. Bloomberg reported that LIV has begun evaluating bankruptcy as a way to restructure and potentially nullify existing contractual obligations, including guaranteed player deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Can LIV Players Return to the PGA Tour?
With LIV’s future uncertain, reinstatement has become the practical question for players who defected. In January 2026, the PGA Tour opened a one-time window called the Returning Member Program. Eligibility was tight: a player had to have been away for at least two years and to have won a major championship or The Players Championship since 2022. The terms were tighter still.
- A $5 million charitable donation
- Forfeiture of player equity shares for five years
- Ineligibility for the $100 million FedEx Cup bonus program
- A minimum of 15 events played
- No sponsor exemptions into signature events; players earn their way in
Brooks Koepka took the deal, returning to the PGA Tour after his LIV contract expired at the end of 2025. Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, and Cameron Smith did not accept during the three-week window. The program is not expected to be renewed.
Brian Rolapp, who succeeded Monahan as PGA Tour CEO in mid-2025, has said he is open to additional pathways but is not rushing. “I’m interested in whatever makes the PGA Tour better,” he told The Pat McAfee Show in April 2026. He also acknowledged the lingering resentment: “there were rules, and they were broken. With rules comes accountability.” The eleven players who joined the antitrust lawsuit against the Tour, including DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson, and Talor Gooch, are expected to face additional scrutiny in any reinstatement discussions.
Patrick Reed has taken a different route, playing the DP World Tour and becoming eligible for PGA Tour events at the end of August 2026, about a year after his last LIV appearance. Representatives for other LIV players have reportedly reached out to the Tour to discuss terms.
The PGA Tour’s Independent Path
While the PIF talks stalled, the Tour built its own future. On January 31, 2024, the PGA Tour launched PGA Tour Enterprises, a for-profit entity that houses the Tour’s commercial interests while the Tour itself keeps its tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code. The Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of American sports team owners led by Fenway Sports Group and including Arthur Blank and Steve Cohen, put in an initial $1.5 billion with the potential for up to $3 billion. The deal valued PGA Tour Enterprises at roughly $12 billion.
The structure turned nearly 200 PGA Tour members into equity holders, with access to more than $1.5 billion in immediate and future equity grants that vest based on career accomplishments, recent performance, and membership status. A 13-person board oversees the enterprise: seven PGA Tour players, four SSG representatives, the commissioner, and one independent director. SSG formally consented to a possible future PIF co-investment, keeping the door open without depending on it.
Government Scrutiny That Shaped the Outcome
The proposed partnership drew attention from Washington almost immediately. The Department of Justice’s antitrust division notified the PGA Tour in June 2023 that it would review the deal, building on a preexisting DOJ investigation into the Tour’s competitive practices. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to oppose the deal if it violated the Sherman Act or the Clayton Act.
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Senator Richard Blumenthal, opened its own inquiry in June 2023. At a July 2023 hearing, PGA Tour COO Ron Price testified that the new entity would be a PGA Tour subsidiary with the Tour maintaining “absolute control” over funding decisions. Blumenthal characterized the arrangement differently, saying the Saudi government would be the “dominant owner” with control over “the purse strings.” The framework’s broad non-disparagement clause, which could have barred players from criticizing Saudi Arabia on human rights issues, drew particular concern; Price said he would not recommend a final agreement containing such a provision.
The subcommittee released its final minority staff report on April 11, 2025. It concluded that the PIF’s investment in golf amounted to “sportswashing,” aimed at buying long-term influence rather than a standard business return. It also found that the June 2023 framework was primarily a strategy to avoid U.S. discovery in the antitrust litigation, after a court ruling that the PIF could not claim sovereign immunity would have forced the fund to produce internal communications. The report said the PIF had gone to “great lengths” to avoid transparency, including suing its own U.S.-based consultants in Saudi courts to block compliance with a congressional subpoena. Blumenthal introduced the Sovereign Wealth Fund Transparency Act in response and called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to strengthen enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Where Things Stand Now
The Tour has rejected the PIF’s latest $1.5 billion offer and continues to insist that any unified circuit cannot include LIV Golf’s team format. The PIF is winding down its golf spending and has stepped back from the table. Joe Gorder chairs both the PGA Tour policy board and the PGA Tour Enterprises board. Rolapp is settling into the CEO role, and Monahan is expected to remain commissioner through the end of 2026. Key architects of the original framework, including Jimmy Dunne, Ed Herlihy, and former DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley, are no longer involved.
The current policy board includes player directors Tiger Woods, Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Keith Mitchell, Maverick McNealy, and Camilo Villegas, among others. For the dozens of players who left the PGA Tour for guaranteed Saudi money, the path back is narrowing. The sport that was supposed to be reunified remains fractured, with no resolution in sight.