DP World boss reveals exactly when PGA Tour-PIF deal will be reached in 2025
Saudi PIF's deal with the PGA Tour likely to be reached 'within the next six months', reveals DP World Tour group communications officer.
DP World Tour group communications officer Daniel Van Otterdijk believes a deal between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) will likely be reached 'within the next six months'.
The PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF announced a framework agreement in June 2023 to house all of their commercial operations in a for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises.
Fast forward some 16 months, and a deal is still yet to be reached despite a number of recent meetings between Saudi PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and newly-appointed DP World Tour CEO Guy Kinnings.
All parties are trying to come to terms on a deal that would see LIV Golf's bankrollers, the Saudi PIF, inject more than $1 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises.
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But despite the lengthy wait for a deal that is going to change the professional golf landscape as we know it, DP World Tour communications officer Otterdijk, who spoke to Gulf News this week, is confident an agreement can be reached by time The Masters swings around in April 2025.
"If you take the sort of media nonsense and the perceived politics out of it, if you look at all three bodies, the PGA Tour, which is now very much supported by the Fenway Sports Group, LIV Golf, which is supported by the PIF, and the DP World Tour, which is supported by us, they are all entities that love golf - no doubt about it," said Van Otterdijk, speaking at the DP World Tour Playoffs launch event at Expo City in Dubai.
"His Excellency Yasir Al-Rumayyan is probably one of the biggest golf fans in the world. So, everyone has the right intention. And when you have parties who disagree on the way forward, but everybody has the right intention, inevitably they come together and solve it.
"We're confident that within the next six months they'll come up with a structure that befits world golf in a much better way than what we currently have, but of course, there are legacy issues to sort out."
Otterdijk then also touched on what the professional golf landscape could look like when a deal gets finalised, and he directed his response immediately to the world of cricket.
"The way that it will go, as far as we can see, if you look at cricket as a model, cricketers these days can play in franchise leagues around the world – the IPL, the Big Bash – whatever it is," said Van Otterdijk.
"It's kind of like a smorgasbord of cricket they can play in. The top players, like Joe Root, Kane Williamson or Virat Kohli, will say, 'look, I'm in my 30s, I've made X amount of money, I'm now going to play the elite tournaments.
"They make a schedule based on their fitness and all the rest of it. They're playing those tournaments and making their money. But they've governed by a variety of different bodies - a very powerful body, the BCCI, the MCC and then you've got Cricket Australia, Cricket New Zealand, and so on.
"They've all got their own governorships, if you like, and yet they work harmoniously together through the ICC in creating a schedule when there's, I wouldn't say there's none, but there's limited overlap between all the franchise tournaments that get played. Golf will head the same way.
"I can see an end-to-end calendar from January to December, where there's a prominent place for the PGA Tour, a prominent place for LIV Golf and a promiment place for the DP World Tour, but there will be overlaps.
"A guy like Tommy [Fleetwood] can say 'look, I want to keep my PGA Tour card, and I want to play on the DP World Tour, but I'd like to play some LIV Golf events as well'.
"I think LIV Golf will combine their current team structure - that will probably drop, but they'll still have team events."
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