Patrick Cantlay has confirmed a meeting between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia will be held on Monday.
After Golfweek reported during The 50th Players Championship that PGA Tour players were being encouraged to meet with figures from the PIF as early as next week, Sports Illustrated has now reported further details via the former FedEx Cup champion.
Cantlay, who is a player director on the PGA Tour Policy Board, described Monday as a “meet and greet” as opposed to a crunch setting to sign a deal which has been in the offing since both entities announced a joint framework agreement on June 6, 2023.
“Well, I’ve got to hear out what they have to say, and I will always do my best to represent the entire membership whenever I am in a meeting in that capacity,” Cantlay said here at TPC Sawgrass.
“I think more information is always better.
“I’m not even sure that we’re to that point yet,” he added about the completion of the PIF negotiations. “So, I don’t want to get out ahead of myself. And say something that may go different.”
The golf world was rocked when the LIV Golf League was born in June 2022. Several PGA Tour and DP World Tour stars were lured with inviting, lucrative sign-up fees which led to suspensions from playing on both of golf’s traditional circuits.
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The PIF bankrolls LIV Golf, the direct rival to the PGA Tour but hostilities appeared to be over when the PGA Tour and the PIF publicly announced their alliance last summer. A formal compromise is yet to be pencilled and as the weeks go by, questions are being raised about both entities continuing to go on their separate ways.
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“If it weren’t to happen, we would go on in a similar paradigm to how we’re going on right now. I think there are pros and cons,” Cantlay said about this possibility.
PGA Tour-PIF meeting confirmed, but what will come of it?
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan told the media in Ponte Vedra on Tuesday that talks with the PIF were accelerating, but there were still issues to be discussed before cooperating fully.
“While we have several key issues that we still need to work through, we have a shared vision to quiet the noise and unlock golf’s worldwide potential,” Monahan said.
“It’s going to take time, but I reiterate what I said at the Tour Championship in August. I see a positive outcome for the PGA Tour and the sport as a whole.”
It is unclear who could be in the meeting in Florida after the PGA Tour’s flagship tournament is over, whether it be players, officials or representatives from the DP World Tour – a circuit that is also involved in discussion related to the framework agreement.
Outgoing DP World Tour chief executive Keith Pelley and incoming chief executive Guy Kinnings have both been on-site during the 50th edition of The Players.
Pelley is set to leave his role at the beginning of April, but there is no guarantee that a formal agreement will be complete by then. Ewan Murray of the Guardian reported over the weekend that any type of joint schedule involving PGA Tour and LIV Golf players, presumably one of the products we could see from a tour-PIF alliance, might not materialise until 2026.
Jordan Spieth, one of six player directors on the PGA Tour Policy Board, also revealed the players are being encouraged to meet with the PIF after the second round on Friday.
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“I’m not sure that I can say much more other than we’re being encouraged to potentially meet with them, but at the same time we probably feel like our membership should know timing and what could happen and just in general maybe it’s just a meet
“I think there’s not a whole lot more I can say about that, but we are being encouraged obviously which I think is probably a good thing that the entire board should if there’s going to be any potential for a negotiation.”
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