PGA Tour and Saudi PIF decide to ABANDON key part of deal over PLAYER TRANSFERS!
The PGA Tour and Saudi Public Investment Fund have reportedly changed their mind on player signings ahead of shock merger.
The PGA Tour and Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) have decided to abandon a key part of their deal where player transfers are concerned, according to a report in the New York Times.
According to three people who have spoken to the New York Times with anonymity of the latest findings from this week's US Senate hearing, it is understood the PGA Tour and Saudi PIF have "abandoned a crucial provision of their tentative deal that promised not to recruit each other's players."
The decision to amend this part of the deal was reportedly made due to being an "early casualty of an antitrust review by Justice Department regulators who are expected to decide in the coming months whether to try to block the transaction."
It therefore means player transfers can still take place on the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, the latter of which is bankrolled by Saudi PIF.
The NY Times reports:
The Senate Homeland Security Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations conducted a hearing on the agreement on Tuesday.
The shock merger between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi PIF first came to light in early June.
But the PGA Tour and Saudi PIF is now facing intense pressure from the Justice Department about their ambitions to realistically form a new company that is going to shape the world of professional golf as we know it for years to come.
A number of bombshells were dropped from this week's hearing, which featured a 276-page document, and you can check them out in the link below.
High-ranking PGA Tour execs were shown an interesting slideshow about LIV Golf's plans for Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods as part of the PIF deal.
McIlroy then shut down any talk of any collaboration with LIV Golf whatsoever after making a fast start at the Scottish Open on Thursday.
In fact, McIlroy went in hard on LIV.
Elsewhere today, "players are done with Jay Monahan", the current PGA Tour commissioner, according to a six-time PGA Tour winner.
But back to the original story, and should the PGA Tour and Saudi PIF have indeed abandoned their 'no transfer' policy as per the NY Times, it would mean big-name PGA Tour players such as World No.2 Jon Rahm could indeed still move to LIV Golf should he wish to in the future.
Similarly, Brooks Koepka and Cameron Smith could still one day force a move back to the PGA Tour should they wish.
One of the latest player transfer rumours to reach the GolfMagic inbox includes one former major champion potentially heading to Koepka's Smash GC to replace an out-of-favour Matt Wolff.
In case you missed that last week at LIV Golf London, it all kicked off between Koepka and Wolff.
Andy first joined the brand on a month's work experience back in April 2011, and he now assumes the Editor role. When Andy joined GolfMagic it was a small site with potential.
