After another tumultuous year in men’s professional golf, 2024 simply has to be the year when a solution is found for the benefit of the ones really being hit - golf fans - and to avoid all the arguments and accusations from turning people away from the sport.
We’ve had drawn-out, expensive legal battles, we’ve had a “Framework Agreement” that has so far yielded nothing, and we’ve continued to see hundreds of millions splashed out on new LIV Golf signings as the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) still can’t find a way to strike a deal.
And while some professional golfers cash in huge LIV signing bonuses and others get handed PGA Tour PIP millions and boosted prize money in elevated events - nobody is seemingly thinking about the fans.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and PIF boss Yasir Al-Rumayyan need to start working together, faster, to get something done.
There are arguments about who can play where, who should get Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points and most importantly who will be in charge of the future of golf.
In short it's seemingly all about money and power - and a far cry from the "growing the game" mantra that's regularly trotted out by both sides. But what should be done next?
What does a solution look like in an ideal world? What does golf need to do to save itself from self-destructing? Likes take a hopeful look into 2024 and see if we can do a deal.
The best players have to play each other
What golf fans want to see is the best players playing on the best courses in the best events for the sport's biggest prizes - that's in terms of history and tradition and not just huge pots of cash.
Most of the top LIV golfers have Major exemptions, including Jon Rahm, and they'll be challenging in the big four events no doubt, but that's not quite enough is it?
Nobody's asking for stacked fields every single week, but the very top priority for both sides, the PIF and PGA Tour, should be getting the likes of Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and company playing in big events against Viktor Hovland, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy.
Now this isn't easy - as players who remained on the PGA Tour will want some sort of compensation no doubt, and there will likely need to be a firm commitment from LIV players to play a minimum number of big events, but this really should be the top priority.
Bryson DeChambeau of all people perhaps put it best, telling Rick Shiels: “I think the game eventually needs to come back together and I’ve said it from day one when I went over and there’s numerous times where I talked to Jay [Monahan] about it too, I was like, 'This all has to work out in the end for the good of the game, this can’t just be for the PGA Tour or for LIV. The fans have got to win here’.”
How does LIV Golf fit in?
The big question here is how much the PIF wants it to, as they're the money men behind it and it's been suggested that it's a means to an end - with the end being to gain control of men's pro golf.
We do know that the PIF wants to play a leading role in running the PGA Tour, but it's unlikely now that LIV Golf will just disappear - and there is a way that it can actually perform a role many of its players say they're keen on. Growing the game!
DeChambeau's plan was to integrate LIV's team competition into the elevated events, but that simply won't work and would be too distracting - while saying the top LIV players have to abandon it completely and return to PGA Tour duty won't fly with them.
But LIV could still be a series of global invitational events with some of its biggest stars playing regularly - those with contracts ending could decide whether to renew or return to PGA Tour action.
And the funds from those gaudy signing on fees and over inflated prize pots being used for charity or golfing development in countries around the world would surely be a better use?
It'd need a bit of give-and-take on all sides, something nobody has really shown willing as yet, but there's room in the schedule and if a deal is done meaning everyone's on the same side then giving players some manner of freedom can't be a bad thing.
And what's more, taking away the LIV Golf gimmicks of being a disruptor, over paying for players and prize money, and letting it sink or swim on just the golfing entertainment it provides would settle whether fans really do have the appetite for team golf.
Will Jay stay or go?
Things have not gone well for Jay Monahan, he's admitted that he's not handled the entire situation as well as he'd have liked and even if you take into account how new and unexpected all this was - he's not come out of it well.
It started from not taking the call from Greg Norman and the PIF in the first place, when if he'd accepted that the Saudis had billions to pump into golf he could have negotiated from a position of strength.
Whether Monahan felt morally obliged to turn it down as he later spoke on TV about the 9/11 terror attacks and Saudi Arabia's links to them, or whether he was just unwilling to cede any power - only he knows.
His huge June 6 U-turn though lost him any moral argument, and since then he really looks to have 'lost the dressing room' with players losing their trust in him and his running of the PGA Tour.
If even Viktor Hovland is having a go at you then you know you have lost the players somewhat!
It may be too late for Monahan to move aside and he might be the right man for the job of brokering the deal, but it would probably be best for the PGA Tour and restore some trust with the players if he moved on once any merger deal is done.
