PGA Tour, Saudi talks 'accelerating': Monahan
PGA Tour chief Jay Monahan said Tuesday talks with the Saudi Arabian backers of LIV Golf were "accelerating" but was tight-lipped on how the proposed joint venture between the two bodies would work. Speaking to reporters ahead of this week's Players Championship, Monahan said negotiations with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) were progressing. However Monahan said several "key issues" remained to be resolved and that hammering out a deal would "take time". The emergence of the Saudi-funded LIV Golf, which has lured top PGA Tour players with huge signing on fees and lucrative limited field tournaments, plunged golf into a bitter civil war. Monahan however shocked the sporting world last June by announcing that the PGA Tour had agreed a tie-up with LIV's backers, the PIF, in a stunning U-turn that followed secret negotiations. The precise detail of how the new venture between the PGA Tour and PIF will work remains shrouded in mystery. Monahan, who has faced criticism for his handling of the crisis, declined to comment on the question of whether players who left for LIV would be welcomed back to the PGA Tour. Monahan added however that the eventual goal was to unify the sport so that all of the world's best players were participating on one circuit. Monahan also declined to say whether the new joint PGA Tour-PIF venture would feature LIV's team golf concept. "There are a lot of things that we're talking about, team golf being one of them, but I'm not at liberty to talk about the specifics," Monahan said. "I just don't think that's helpful for what we're trying to accomplish together." Monahan urged rank-and-file PGA Tour members opposed to allowing LIV players back on to the circuit to be flexible, but acknowledged that any eventual agreement was unlikely to be universally popular. "When you're in a negotiation like this and you're in a time like this, it requires open-mindedness, it requires flexibility, and it requires a long-term view and a long-term vision," Monahan said. "But however we end up, I think that we're not going to be able to satisfy everyone, and that goes for both sides. "But what we're trying to do is to get to the best possible outcome again for the Tour and for the game, and I do think that that's achievable." (AFP)