Rory McIlroy attended a meeting on Friday evening between the PGA Tour Enterprises Transaction Subcommittee and the Saudi Public Investment Fund behind LIV Golf, where, according to a statement from the subcommittee, “progress was made.”
The meeting took place in New York City, and on the PGA Tour side, Tiger Woods and Adam Scott also attended, along with commissioner Jay Monahan, the subcommittee’s chairman Joe Gorder, player liaison Joe Ogilvie and Strategic Sports Group principal John Henry. PIF was represented by governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan and his team.
The statement read: "Representatives from the PGA Tour Enterprises Transaction Subcommittee and the PIF have been meeting multiple times weekly to work through potential deal terms and come to a shared vision on the future of professional golf.”
"On Friday evening, an in-person session in New York City included the entire Transaction Subcommittee and PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan and his team, where more progress was made."
It continued: “We remain committed to these negotiations, which require working through complex considerations to best position golf for global growth
“We want to get this right, and we are approaching discussions with careful consideration for our players, our fans, our partners and the game’s future.”
The anniversary of the news that the PGA Tour and PIF had begun negotiations over the future of the men’s elite game has now passed, while it's approaching six months since the initial deadline to agree details on a framework agreement came and went.
Since then, there have been some signs of progress. Before The Players Championship in March, Monahan revealed negotiations were “accelerating,” and after the TPC Sawgrass event, members of the PGA Tour policy board, including Woods, met with Al-Rumayyan in the Bahamas.
Despite stepping down from his position on the PGA Tour policy board in November, McIlroy, who attended remotely after the second round of the Memorial Tournament, still holds significant influence on the PGA Tour and has regularly discussed his opinions on what the future may look like for top-level golf with the Tour working alongside LIV Golf.
Even though a move to rejoin the board didn’t come to fruition, the confirmation McIlroy attended the most recent meeting with the PIF suggests he still has a role to play in the negotiations.
After his first round at the Memorial Tournament, McIlroy admitted he had considered flying to New York for the meeting mid-tournament. He said: “There’s going to be people in that room on the Tour side who are going to take the lead. And it’s not going to be Adam, Tiger or me. That’s going to be Jay, Joe and John Henry. It’s going to be the business guys.
“We’re there to maybe give a perspective from a player’s point of view. This is a negotiation about an investment in the PGA Tour Enterprises, this is big boy stuff. And I’ll certainly be doing more listening than I will be doing talking."
