Lucas Glover delivered a damning verdict on the PGA Tour’s failure to inform players about their own futures.
The 2009 US Open champion told NCG that he and his colleagues are “out there playing for our lives without any inkling of what the people in charge are thinking.”
His concerns stem from last June when the PGA Tour unexpectedly announced the framework agreement with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, seemingly ending the ‘civil war’ between the tour and LIV Golf.
Following weeks of clandestine meetings with LIV’s primary investors, December 31 was set as the deal’s deadline but now it’s hoped a compromise “to unify golf” comes before the Masters in April.
Glover, a six-time tour winner at 44 years of age, says the players have received no updates since the shock news last summer and an agreement that suited everybody should’ve already been announced.
“No,” he said when asked if he was happy with the information he had about the framework agreement.
“We don’t know anything. Nobody knows anything. We’re getting no updates, we don’t know what’s going on, and the LIV guys don’t know what’s going on.
“We’ve got no information, and I said this in Hawaii, if it was such a good deal for everybody, you’d think it would be done by now.
“If it was the answer to our issues and our problems, well man, that seems like that would be an easy deal to get done.
“But here we are with a three- or four-month extension and no information and players asking other players if they heard anything. You’ve got LIV guys asking tour guys and vice versa if they’re hearing anything, and nobody knows.
“We’re out there playing for our lives without any inkling of what the people in charge are thinking. That doesn’t make them bad people and it doesn’t make them bad at their job, but it seems like as a leader, you would tell your members what the heck is going on, and we’re not getting any of that.”
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What “a good deal for everybody” would look like isn’t known.
The initial announcement on June 6 said the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the PIF would combine their commercial businesses to form a collective entity to deliver “maximum excitement and competition among the game’s best players.”
‘To say we were blindsided in June would be a gross understatement’
PGA Tour chief executive Jay Monahan came under fire from players when negotiations with the PIF were revealed. The news constituted a significant U-turn by Monahan who’d been vocally opposed to LIV Golf since its inception in June 2022.
Monahan has since vowed to restore trust from the membership, and Tiger Woods stated at the 2023 Hero World Challenge that the tour boss knows such secrecy “can’t happen again and it won’t happen again.”
The PGA Tour’s Policy Board has seen much change after the fallout from the framework agreement, with Woods becoming a player director and Rory McIlroy resigning as a player director.
Woods is one of six players on the board, and another is Patrick Cantlay who has spoken of the work and hours going into securing the best outcome for the tour’s membership.
But Glover, the World No.31 and winner of two PGA Tour events last season, doubts if players should be involved in these decisions at all and if the tour listens to the players anyway.
“I’m not in that room and I don’t want to be,” he added. “But as a member, I want to be at least in the know of what my future may hold.
“I’m not smart enough or business savvy enough to make those decisions and frankly, I don’t think anybody who plays the tour should be a part of those decisions.
“I think either have a commissioner that treats it as a dictatorship, as, ‘I’m in charge here and here’s how we’re going to do it’, but keep us informed.
“At the same time, if you’re going to have a board and an advisory council, listen to them. Because they didn’t with a lot of issues in the past, they go about their own way anyhow.
“It’s almost like they want us to have a voice and want to hear from us, but they do what they want anyhow.
“To say we were blindsided in June would be a gross understatement.
“I would trust a businessman over a PGA Tour player, I would trust Jimmy Dunne over me, or Randall Stephenson over me, or any guys who play golf,” he added.
“These guys didn’t go to school for this, these men went to school for this and they’ve been doing this their whole life. I can’t do what they do and they can’t do what I do, and I’m not going to pretend to be able to, and they shouldn’t either.
“That’s the way I feel about it. If you want our help making decisions for competition-orientated things – the business stuff needs to be left to the business people.”
NOW READ: ‘Petty and bitter’: Lee Westwood slams his Senior Open rejection
What do you say to the PGA Tour-PIF framework agreement? Is this Lucas Glover PGA Tour verdict fair? Tell us on X/Twitter!
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