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Imagine a world where Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy owned and played on LIV Golf teams.
It’s very hard to do, but it’s exactly an offer that’s been made to members of the PGA Tour’s board of directors. This came during negotiations that led to a stunning framework agreement to merge the commercial golf operations of the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund in golf into a new company.
The proposal was disclosed in documents released by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations ahead of a scheduled hearing on the proposed deal on Tuesday. On April 26, the private equity firm, PCP Capital Partners, sent PGA Tour board members Jimmy Dunn and Ed Herlihy a “Best of Both Worlds” presentation, which included several proposals for what a long-term agreement might look like.
The first of these was for Woods and McIlroy, two of LIV Golf’s staunchest opponents before the frame agreement was announced, to own LIV teams and play at least 10 events a year.
BCB Capital Partners has been involved in other PIF deals, including the high-profile purchase of English football club Newcastle United, in which it owns a 10 per cent stake.
The email offer came just days after a meeting in London with, among others, Dunn, Herlihy, and representatives from the Public Investment Fund, according to the documents. Other proposals included “a global golf-style LIV team event with qualifying events held in Saudi Arabia and a final week in Dubai”, “a global golf investment fund managed by the Public Investment Fund” and “at least two high-profile PGA events sponsored by Aramco and/or Public Investment Fund, and one of these events was held in Saudi Arabia.
A source familiar with the negotiations told GOLF.com that the proposals did not go far.
“It is important to understand that the documents released as part of the Senate hearing included proposals that PIF/LIV or their representatives had made to the PGA Tour, which were quickly rejected and never made into the framework agreement,” the source said.
None of these proposals were discussed in the Senate hearing on Tuesday.
It is unclear whether Woods or McIlroy knew about the proposals.
McIlroy, a member of PGA Tour Policy who — like Dunne and Herlihy — will vote on the agreement when it’s finalized, has become the main spokesperson for the PGA Tour in its war against LIV Golf over the past year. Even when the frame agreement was announced, he still condemned the competing tour, claiming “I still hate LIV”.
“I hope it goes away. All I’ve tried to do is protect what the PGA Tour is and what the PGA Tour stands for,” McIlroy said at the RBC Canadian Open five weeks ago, the day after the deal was announced. And I think it will continue to do so.
“So, look, going forward, I hope there’s, you know, an element of the team and you’ll see, maybe me, maybe everyone else playing some kind of team golf. But I don’t think it’s going to look like LIV and I think that’s a good thing.”
Woods has been quiet on the issue as he recovers from ankle surgery that has sidelined him since the Masters in April. The only statement the 15-time champion has made since the announcement in June was last week when he denied any knowledge of a document in a lawsuit outlining his potential talking points against Lev.
However, last July at the Open Championship, he made his views clear on the LIV Golf model, which pays players guaranteed money with signature bonuses, as well as playing 54-hole events without a cut.
Woods said in the St. “Guys are a little bit older and more battered. But when you’re that young and some of these kids — they’re really kids who went from amateur golf to that organization — the 72-hole Test is part of it. We used to have the 36-hole playoff for the major championships. That’s how it was – the 18-hole US Open qualifier.”
He continued, “What do these players do for guaranteed money, what’s the incentive to practice? What’s the incentive to go out and earn it in the dirt? You just get a lot of money up front and play some events and play 54 holes. They play loud music and they have all these different vibes.”