The fracture in men's professional golf has existed for nearly five years now. At one point, it appeared as though the PGA Tour and LIV Golf were destined to merge. Those days are long gone. A sentiment that World No. 2 Rory McIlroy made very clear at the CNBC CEO Council Forum, per ESPN.
“You see some of these other sports that have been fractured for so long,” McIlroy said. “You look at boxing for example, or you look at what's happened in motor racing in the United States with Indy and NASCAR and everything else, I think for golf in general it would be better if there was unification.
“But I just think with what's happened over the last few years, it's just going to be very difficult to be able to do that.”
LIV Golf emerged coming out of COVID, providing an alternative for golf fans. The raucous environments, shotgun starts, and highly confusing team-individual format were a far cry from conventional golf tournaments. But maybe the biggest difference was the money funneled into LIV.
“As someone who supports the traditional structure of men's professional golf, we have to realize we were trying to deal with people that were acting, in some ways, irrationally, just in terms of the capital they were allocating and the money they were spending,” said McIlroy.
“It's been four or five years, and there hasn't been a return yet, but they're going to have to keep spending that money to even just maintain what they have right now.”
LIV Golf is funded by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which has its hands in sports all around the world. The Saudi Crown Prince has been accused of sportswashing, cleansing the country's reputation for human rights violations, through sport.
During an interview with Fox News two years ago, Prince Mohammed bin Salman all but admitted to the act.
“If it’s sportswashing and it improves my gross domestic product (GDP) by 1%, then I will continue doing sportswashing,” bin Salman said.
“I have 1% GDP growth from sports, and I’m aiming for another 1.5%. Call it whatever you want, [but] we’re going to get that other 1.5%.”
The Saudi PIF is worth an estimated $941 billion. So, LIV Golf is likely not going anywhere anytime soon. Nor is the PGA Tour and its traditional nature. Don't hold your breath on a merger.
