PGA Tour strikes investment deal with American group, not Saudis

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The future of professional golf will be made at least slightly more clear on Wednesday, after a deal has reportedly been struck between the PGA Tour and the American-based Strategic Sports Group (SSG) to foundationally change the structure of golf’s pre-eminent professional circuit.

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A players’ meeting expected to announce and explain the deal was set by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan for 9:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, according to an internal document leaked to social media on Tuesday evening.

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The injection of about $3-billion from SSG, first reported by Sports Business Journal, is expected put the PGA Tour led by a battle-weary Monahan on surer-footing after a two-year war with the Saudi-led LIV Golf league that has poached many of the PGA Tour’s most colourful stars including Jon Rahm, Bryson Dechambeau and Phil Mickelson.

The deal will see the PGA Tour morph from its non-profit roots — a favourite tax-loophole of professional sports — to become a for-profit company with the expected title of PGA Tour Enterprises. It’s expected that the new structure will see the tour’s top players, including Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and others, become equity owners in the new company. A move the PGA Tour hopes will offset some of the risk of players jumping ship to rival LIV Golf.

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SSG is made up of a group of deep-pocketed sports ownership titans that includes Red Sox owners Fenway Group and New York Mets and Liverpool FC owner Steve Cohen’s investment firm HighPost Capital.

Before negotiations with SSG began, the PGA tour had announced a surprise framework deal with LIV Golf owners the Saudi Public Investment Fund. The deadline to complete that deal with its chief rival came and went in December, but both sides agreed to an extension. It is not known, but is expected, that the PGA Tour will continue working on a deal with the Saudi PIF despite Wednesday’s deal.

The expected agreement between the PGA Tour and SSG won’t end the big-money war for the future of golf, but it is expected to give commissioner Monahan’s side some much-needed leverage in what has been a rather one-sided battle of attrition between golf’s top tour and the deep-pocketed Saudi PIF.

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For fans, the future of golf won’t immediately look any different with game’s best players still split between  rival tours, but Wednesday likely will be seen as the first step to putting a broken professional game back together. What that future will look look like is still a mystery, but it’s a little closer.

“The faster that we can all get back together and start to play and start to have the strongest fields possible I think is great for golf,” Rory McIlroy said Tuesday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

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