Golf can become two divisions - The PGA Tour and Everyone Else

As unbelievable as it may sound, us tour caddies do occasionally pull the wrong club, both literally and figuratively.

So confession time: I’m beginning to think that, having told anyone who will listen that the PGA Tour v LIV Golf impasse will ultimately deliver a 14-16 “best versus the best” series called something like the “World Series of Golf”, I might have pulled said wrong club.

That is despite it making as much sense at the end of the 2024 DP World Tour season as it did when The Secret Tour Caddy first pontificated about this in the Major Season chapter of his (my) book, actually originally written in June 2023.

But good sense, like common sense, doesn’t always prevail to the point where I’m now inclined to think that if this World Series of Golf was going to be the end result, we’d have got there by now.

So like I say, maybe, and certainly not for the first time, that looks like a poor club from me and in fact, the world of elite professional golf might look way closer to what DP World Tour star-turned-LIV Golf rebel Adrian Meronk has previously alluded to, where the PGA Tour continues to exist in its own right “over there”; while LIV Golf continues in its own right “over here.”

It’s just that they don’t bicker anymore and crucially, there’s some degree of fluidity and reciprocal playing rights across both or, to frame it in another way, the world of professional golf has two parallel tours. Yes, just two because ultimately it ends up with LIV Golf (or whatever name is on the tin) being a parallel tour i.e. effectively world golf minus the PGA Tour, and the PGA Tour in splendid isolation.

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It’s two tours because the likes of the Asian Tour and the DP World Tour end up coming under the LIV Golf umbrella starting with the Asian Tour. Meronk was 100% correct in saying that tour appears to be flourishing right now with an International Series increasing exposure and serious prize money on offer thanks to the funding it receives from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.

That’s before you talk about the talent that tees it up every week. What’s more, if the likes of Hideki Matsuyama ever do join LIV Golf, then there’s a fair chance you’ll increasingly hear the phrase “the PGA Tour: What’s that again?” across Asia.

With the Asian Tour under the LIV Golf umbrella, that effectively forces the DP World Tour to the table. After all, its product is way more closely aligned with LIV Golf and the Asian Tour in that it is already the world’s only true international tour.

So with its much-maligned “strategic alliance” due to end in 2027, that would be a perfect time for it too to negotiate some form of amalgamation or alignment with LIV Golf, whilst effectively doing very little different in terms of schedule.

They’d just have better fields and play for way more money which would be good for business and definitely good for their members, all of which taken together may well explain why several guys currently playing on LIV are taking back their DP World Tour membership for 2025, with fines allegedly paid and all that.

Sergio Garcia was among the group of names to break cover.

They’ll go back into their “former” categories, so any returning Rolex Series event winner would into that category for example. As they’re pretty much all top players, that effectively means they’ll basically get into any tournament they fancy playing in and if that’s not an indication of the way things are headed, then I don’t know what is!

It would all make perfect sense, as well as common sense. But recent history in the world of professional golf suggests that might yet count for nothing.

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Is there any need for a PGA Tour-LIV merger anymore? Will a PGA Tour-LIV merger ever come around? Tell us and the Secret Tour Caddy what you think on X!