The PGA Tour and LIV Golf said that they would “put all the nastiness behind them and join forces” nearly two years ago, but in the time since, the two sides have “remained as separate as they were when they were battling each other, and they’re now reckoning with the fallout,” according to Beaton & Radnofsky of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. It has all dragged on long enough that the sides are “hoping that a noted golf fanatic” in President Donald Trump “can fix it.” The president previously said that resolving this impasse is “more complicated than ending the Russia-Ukraine war.” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan insists that there is “progress toward a deal -- you just can’t see it yet.” Beaton & Radnofsky wrote, though, it has “seemed like more ebbs than flows for golf fans eager to see” LIV stars regularly tee it up against PGA Tour stalwarts once again. The question that remains is when the two sides “will unify a fractured game” (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 3/11).
DON’T TAKE BAIT: SI’s Gary Van Sickle wrote do not “bother holding your breath” on a deal between the two sides. Van Sickle: “I don’t see the PGA Tour and LIV finalizing a deal. Not soon, probably not ever.” He wrote he cannot “find many reasons why the PGA Tour should consider a merger with LIV Golf.” Van Sickle: “For starters, it feels to me as if the PGA Tour’s goal is for LIV Golf to just go away or to be eliminated. That’s a hurdle I don’t think either side can get over and it’s one that no one talks about” (SI, 3/11).
FATIGUE SETTING IN: GOLF’s Josh Schrock noted there has been “no significant movement” on a deal in some time, and PGA Tour golfer Justin Thomas, for one, has “felt fatigue set in among Tour membership.” Thomas said yesterday before the Players Championship, “This is the third time I’ve played this tournament while this has been going on in some way, shape or form. Yeah, I think we’re kind of like past the level of exhaustion.” He added, “There’s just so many of us, really on both sides, both us on Tour and I think the LIV players, that we don’t really know what’s going on and we’re just playing golf and hoping for the best” (GOLF, 3/11).
FORWARD THINKING: In West Palm Beach, Tom D’Angelo noted PGA Tour golfer Adam Scott -- the only player to accompany Monahan for both meetings at the White House -- “added a bit more insight” to the ongoing discussions yesterday. Scott said the products “work in very different ways” and a deal “may not be ultimately possible.” Scott said, “The Tour’s being very careful and respectful of everyone and wanting to give everyone, the golf fans and the media and the players, the product that they want. But we’re starting from two different sides of this, so I think it’s hard to find the balance that’s acceptable for everybody. And it also may not be ultimately possible.” Like Monahan, Scott reiterated the PGA Tour “must look out for itself” and “protect its brand as it moves forward with the negotiations” (PALM BEACH POST, 3/11).
NEVER ENDING BATTLE: In N.Y., Mark Cannizzaro writes the sense when you listen to Monahan is that he and the PGA Tour have “placed the ball squarely in LIV’s court, leaving it up to LIV to cave to whatever the PGA Tour’s demands are.” He writes it is “pretty clear” that Monahan is “trying to present the PGA Tour as the side holding the cards.” What Monahan refuses to acknowledge is that the longer this “negotiation” drags on, the “more fan interest the PGA Tour loses.” Monahan “several times used the word ‘urgency,’” and yet there does not “appear to be any urgency to get this resolved on either side.” Cannizzaro: “So, round and round we go while golf loses fans because they’ve understandably been losing their patience” (N.Y. POST, 3/12).
