PGA Tour-LIV Golf unification farther away since meeting with Donald Trump

PGA Tour player Adam Scott confirmed little progress has been made in bridging the divide between the two golf entities.
New PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp will oversee the negotiations going forward.

For months it was believed talks had stalled between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, or since the parties met twice in the White House with Donald Trump.

But Adam Scott, who was present during that last meeting with the president in late February as a member of the PGA Tour’s policy board, confirmed what both sides have hinted at recently while speaking ahead of the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C.

“I don’t know if more White House visits are really necessary,” he added. “It was really quite an experience, I have to say. Those conversations haven’t advanced far from there.”

Optimism was high as PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the head of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which owns LIV Golf, ahead of those meetings in February.

But they emerged from the final meeting, which also included Scott and Tiger Woods, farther apart, despite Trump’s boast it would take him “the better part of 15 minutes” to bring the two sides together once he started his second term.

The sides have been negotiating since reaching a stunning “framework agreement” in June 2023 that called for PIF to invest $1.5 billion into the Tour’s for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises.

LIV losing momentum since signing Jon Rahm 2 years ago

The PGA Tour now has all the leverage with LIV losing momentum since signing Jon Rahm in December 2023. And going forward, the Tour will be represented by new CEO Brian Rolapp, who was named in June as Monahan’s replacement. Although Monahan is stepping down at the end of 2026, Rolapp started his job as CEO on July 28.

Scott was part of the PGA Tour CEO Search Committee.

“With Brian stepping in, a lot of that’s going to fall onto his desk now,” Scott said. “I think that he needs some time to kind of really get up to speed and understand what’s going on with that.

“His credentials are obviously excellent on paper, but I have a few things that I really liked about Brian. He has a very calm nature about him, you know, to me, which was one of the guys involved, I thought I quite liked that. I think he’s coming in at a very interesting time in the professional game and I think that calm demeanor’s going to serve him well.”

Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.

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