PGA Tour and LIV Golf Agree to Merger

May 18, 2023

The partnership is a major victory for Saudi ambitions in sports, but the announcement split players. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan described his meeting with golfers late in the afternoon as "heated."

Alan Blinder

The PGA Tour, the dominant force in men's professional golf for generations, and LIV Golf, which made its debut just last year and is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in Saudi money, will together form an industry powerhouse that is expected to transform the sport, executives announced Tuesday.

The rival circuits had spent the last year clashing in public, and the tentative agreement that emerged from secret negotiations blindsided virtually all of the world's top players, agents and broadcasters. The deal would create a new company that would consolidate the PGA Tour's prestige, television contracts and marketing muscle with Saudi money.

The new company came together so quickly that it does not yet even have a name and is referred to in the agreement documents simply as "NewCo." It would be controlled by the PGA Tour but significantly financed by the Saudi government's Public Investment Fund. The fund's governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan, will be the new company's chairman.

The deal, coming when Saudi Arabia is increasingly looking to assert itself on the world stage as something besides one of the world's largest oil producers, has implications beyond sports. The Saudi money will give the new organization greater clout, but it comes with the troubling association of the kingdom's human rights record, its treatment of women and accusations that it was responsible for the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a leading critic.

The agreement does not immediately amount to a Saudi takeover of professional golf, but it positions the nation's top officials to have enormous sway over the game. It also represents an escalation in Saudi ambitions in sports, moving beyond its corporate sponsorship of Formula 1 racing and ownership of an English soccer team into a place where it can exert influence over the highest reaches of a global game.

"Everybody is in shock," said Paul Azinger, the winner of the 1993 P.G.A. Championship and the lead golf analyst for NBC Sports. "The future of golf is forever different."

Since LIV began play last year, it has used some of the richest contracts and prize money in the sport's history to entice players away from the PGA Tour. Until Tuesday morning, the PGA Tour had been publicly uncompromising: LIV was a threat to the game and a glamorous way for Saudi Arabia to rehabilitate its reputation. The PGA Tour's commissioner, Jay Monahan, had even avoided uttering LIV's name in public.

But a series of springtime meetings in London, Venice and San Francisco led to a framework agreement that stunned the golf industry for its timing and scope. Monahan, who defended the decision as a sound business choice and said he had accepted that he would be accused of hypocrisy, met with PGA Tour players in Toronto on Tuesday in what he called an "intense" and "certainly heated" exchange.

The deal, though, proved right the predictions that there could eventually be an uneasy patching-up of the sport's fractures. The PGA Tour's board, which includes a handful of players like Patrick Cantlay and Rory McIlroy, must still approve the agreement, a process that could be tumultuous.

It was only a year ago this week that LIV Golf held its inaugural tournament, prompting the PGA Tour to suspend players who competed in it. But by the end of the year, even though the circuit was locked in an antitrust battle with the PGA Tour and its stars were confronting uncertain futures at the sport's marquee competitions, LIV had some of the biggest names in golf on its payroll. Its players have included the major tournament champions Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith.

The players were familiar, but LIV's 54-hole events — the name derives from the Roman numerals for that number — were jarring, with blaring music and golfers in shorts not facing the specter of being unceremoniously cut midway through. The PGA Tour, meanwhile, defended its 72-hole events, where low performers do not compete into the weekend, as rigorous athletic tests that adhered to the traditions of an ancient game.

The less-starchy LIV concept drew plenty of headlines, and the league won even greater attention because of its links to former President Donald J. Trump, who hosted LIV tournaments and emerged as one of its most enthusiastic boosters. The league, however, was still largely dependent on the largess of a wealth fund that had been warned that a rebel golf circuit was no certain financial bonanza. It stumbled to a television deal with the CW Network, and big corporate sponsorships were scarce.

The league accrued some athletic successes, even as its players faced the risk of eventual exclusion from golf's major tournaments, which are run by organizations that are close to, but distinct from, the PGA Tour.

Last month, Koepka won the P.G.A. Championship, which was organized by the P.G.A. of America. Koepka, Mickelson and Patrick Reed were among the LIV players who fared especially well at the Masters Tournament, administered by Augusta National Golf Club, in early April.

Within weeks of the Masters, though, after a run of mutual overtures and months of bravado, PGA Tour and Saudi executives were convening in secret to see if there was a way toward some kind of coexistence, in part, Monahan suggested, because he did not think it was "right or sustainable to have this tension in our sport." The result was an agreement that gives the tour the upper hand but is poised to make permanent Saudi Arabia's influence over golf's starry ranks.

Monahan, the tour's commissioner, is in line to be the chief executive of the new company, which will include an executive committee stocked with tour loyalists. But al-Rumayyan's presence, as well as the promise that the wealth fund can play a pivotal role in how the company is ultimately funded, means that Saudi Arabia could do much to shape the sport's future.

In a memorandum to players on Tuesday, Monahan insisted that his tour's "history, legacy and pro-competitive model not only remains intact, but is supercharged for the future."

That was hardly a consensus view. Mackenzie Hughes, a PGA Tour player, acidly noted on Twitter that there was "nothing like finding out through Twitter that we’re merging with a tour that we said we’d never do that with." And Terry Strada, the chairwoman of 9/11 Families United, who had assailed the Saudi foray into golf because of misgivings about the kingdom after the 2001 terrorist attacks, said Monahan and the tour had "become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation."

The tour and the wealth fund both had incentives to forge an agreement, besides the prospect of concluding a chaotic chapter marked by allegations of betrayal and greed.

LIV had faced setbacks in civil litigation against the PGA Tour that threatened to drag al-Rumayyan into sworn testimony and force the wealth fund to turn over documents that could have become public. The tour has been under scrutiny from Justice Department antitrust investigators, who had examined in recent months whether the tour's tactics to counter LIV had undermined golf's labor market.

The litigation between the tour and LIV will end under the terms of the agreement announced Tuesday. The fate of the antitrust inquiry was less clear — experts said the new arrangement would not automatically immunize the tour from potential legal trouble — but LIV's standing as its leading cheerleader evaporated.

For this year, the world's professional golfers are unlikely to see seismic changes in their schedules or playing formats, with LIV and the PGA Tour expected to hold competitions as planned. There may be far more consequential changes later, though, chiefly because the new PGA Tour-controlled company will determine whether and how LIV's team-oriented format might be blended with the tour's more familiar offerings.

LIV players are expected to have pathways to apply for reinstatement to the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour, circuits from which some had resigned when faced with fines and suspensions, but they could face residual penalties for leaving in the first place. Through a spokeswoman, Greg Norman, the two-time major tournament champion who has been LIV's commissioner, declined to be interviewed on Tuesday.

No matter what comes of the LIV brand or style, Tuesday's announcement is a singular milestone in the Saudi quest to become a titan in global sports. With the deal, the kingdom can move, at least in golf, from a well-heeled disrupter to a seat of power at the establishment's table.

Saudi officials have repeatedly denied that political or public relations motives undergird their eager pursuit of sports investments. Instead, they have framed the investments as necessary for shoring up the resource-rich kingdom's finances and to enhance its standing on the world stage.

Beyond its imprint on golf, the wealth fund previously purchased Newcastle United, a potent English soccer team, and a company with close ties to the fund has eyed investments in cricket, tennis and e-sports. And Saudi Arabia has tried to become a host of major sporting events, from boxing matches to its pending bid to host the World Cup in 2030.

But when Saudi Arabia barged into golf last year, it was nearly unthinkable that al-Rumayyan would so swiftly become a formal ally of Monahan and the sport's other power brokers.

"Anybody who thought about it logically would see that something was going to have to happen," Adam Hadwin, a PGA Tour player, said on Tuesday. It was inconceivable, he suggested, that the world's best players would only compete against each other at the four major tournaments, but an armistice "happening this quick and in this way is surprising."

For much of the last year, LIV players have deflected questions about Saudi Arabia's history on human rights and other matters that helped make the kingdom's surge into golf an international flashpoint. They were, they often said, merely golfers and entertainers.

Until Tuesday, Monahan had tried to use the stain of Saudi Arabia to undercut the new league and its golfers.

"I would ask any player that has left, or any player that would ever consider leaving: Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?" he said last year.

On Tuesday, when Monahan declared that the leaders of golf's factions had "realized that we were better off together than we were fighting or apart," it was his tour's players facing questions about lucrative connections to Riyadh.

"I’ve dedicated my entire life to being at golf's highest level," Hadwin, the tour player, said. "I’m not about to stop playing golf because the entity that I play for has joined forces with the Saudi government."

Reporting was contributed by Andrew Das, Kevin Draper, Lauren Hirsch, Eric Lipton, Victor Mather, Ahmed Al Omran and Bill Pennington.

Kevin Draper

Tuesday morning's announcement from the PGA Tour hailed its deal to merge operations with LIV Golf as a "landmark agreement to unify the game" and end the contentious litigation between the competing golf tours.

But when Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, finally spoke to news reporters eight hours later, the agreement sounded far more tentative. He described his meeting with players about the agreement as "intense" and "certainly heated." Monahan also acknowledged that most of the PGA Tour's policy board — which is made up of five independent directors and five golfers — was kept in the dark about the tour's negotiations with LIV over the last seven weeks.

He called the deal a "framework agreement" and said there were numerous issues that needed to be worked through before a "definitive agreement" was presented to the policy board to ratify, raising the possibility that it could be rejected and golf's cold war could stretch on.

Among the issues that Monahan said were still unsettled included the future of LIV itself as an independent golf tour; the pathway for LIV players to rejoin the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour in Europe; whether PGA Tour players who declined to join LIV would somehow be financially compensated; and whether LIV players would have to forfeit some of their compensation.

"Ultimately, everything needs to be considered," Monahan said.

Kevin Draper

Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, said that many members of the PGA Tour policy board — more or less its board of directors — were kept in the dark about the negotiations. The agreement reached with LIV is only a framework agreement; once there is a finalized agreement, the policy board, which includes players, will have to vote to approve it.

Kevin Draper

Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, says there is no definitive agreement on whether PGA Tour players will somehow be made whole for money they turned down when they declined to join LIV, or whether LIV players will somehow have to give up money to rejoin the PGA Tour. "Ultimately, everything needs to be considered," Monahan said.

Kevin Draper

Monahan is being asked repeatedly about his past criticism of the morals of taking LIV and Saudi money. "I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite," the PGA Tour commissioner said. "Anytime I said anything, I said it based on the information I had at the moment, and based on someone trying to compete for the PGA Tour and our players. I accept those criticisms. But circumstances do change."

Kevin Draper

The PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan on his just-completed meeting with players: "I would describe the meeting as intense. Certainly heated."

Kevin Draper

More details about the merger, and how PGA Tour players feel about it, should be emerging soon. Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, is hosting a players meeting in Toronto at the site of this week's RBC Open. After that, Monahan will take questions from the news media.

Alan Blinder

For month after month, the PGA Tour and LIV Golf were content to bludgeon one another in news conferences and court filings. But in the weeks after the Masters Tournament in early April, rival executives began a series of private meetings.

Convening first in London and then Venice and ultimately San Francisco, PGA Tour leaders met with representatives of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, including Yasir al-Rumayyan, the golf fiend who is the wealth fund's governor. According to a person familiar with the discussions, who insisted on anonymity to describe private talks, the sides effectively reached an agreement around Memorial Day but kept word of it secret from even leading executives and players until Tuesday.

The nature of the agreement — for now — keeps the PGA Tour in control, thanks to a provision that allows it to have a majority of board seats in the new company that will house the tour and LIV Golf. The wealth fund will control a minority stake in the new company, but its exclusive right to invest in it going forward opens the door for Riyadh to grow its influence in the years ahead.

But in the interim, the fate of the LIV Golf league itself appears to rest most clearly with the PGA Tour and its allies, with the new company expected to undertake an extensive analysis of the LIV format to determine whether and how it can coexist with the long-dominant tour.

Andrew Das

A group of relatives of people killed on Sept. 11 issued a blistering criticism of the planned merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series and the PGA Tour, calling the tour and its commissioner "paid Saudi shills" for agreeing to it.

Relatives of 9/11 victims have been vocal in their opposition to the Saudi-backed LIV series almost since its inception. Most of the hijackers of the planes used in the 2001 attacks were Saudi. The 9/11 families have saved some of their harshest criticisms for those who have taken part in LIV events and hosted its tournaments. The latter group includes former President Donald J. Trump and his family, who were urged last year to cancel an event at a Trump golf course in New Jersey.

On Tuesday, one group of relatives, called 9/11 Families United, declared that its members were "shocked and deeply offended" by the merger deal. In a statement, the group called it a "betrayal" by the PGA Tour and its commissioner, Jay Monahan.

"The PGA and Monahan appear to have become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation," said the 9/11 Families United chairman, Terry Strada.

Critics of Saudi Arabia frequently deride its investments in teams and leagues as "sportswashing" and say it is a thinly veiled effort to rehabilitate the kingdom's reputation amid accusations that it has financed terrorism and murdered a Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

Strada criticized Monahan for "co-opting" the 9/11 community last year in the PGA Tour's initial and strident opposition to the Saudi-backed golf tour, only to cut a merger deal this week.

"Mr. Monahan talked last summer about knowing people who lost loved ones on 9/11, then wondered aloud on national television whether LIV golfers ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour," Strade wrote. "They do now — as does he. PGA Tour leaders should be ashamed of their hypocrisy and greed."

Members of Congress from both parties weighed in.

"So weird. PGA officials were in my office just months ago talking about how the Saudis’ human rights record should disqualify them from having a stake in a major American sport," said Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, in a message posted on Twitter. "I guess maybe their concerns weren't really about human rights?"

And Representative Chip Roy, a Republican of Texas, added: "In the end, it's always about the money. Saudi Arabia just bought themselves a one-world golf government."

During the 2020 presidential campaign, President Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah" for human rights abuses, most notably the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia and was a columnist for The Washington Post who wrote critically of the Saudi crown prince and the country's government.

As one of his first foreign policy actions in office, Mr. Biden authorized the release of a U.S. intelligence report that said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved the killing.

Mr. Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents while visiting Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul in 2018 to get documents for his upcoming wedding. He was strangled by Saudi agents and then dismembered.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken happened to be in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks this week with Saudi leaders and other Gulf state officials about the possibility of the kingdom normalizing ties with Israel. It wasn't clear if the PGA-LIV merger would be a part of discussions.

An earlier version of this blog item incorrectly stated Chris Murphy's position in Congress. He is a senator, not a representative.

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Kevin Draper

The merger establishes an unusual structure for how golf will be governed going forward.

The PGA Tour, which is a nonprofit organization, will remain that way and retain oversight over the "sanctioning of events and administration of the competition and rules" for the tour, according to the release announcing the merger. Basically, the PGA Tour will still have full control over how its tournaments are played.

But all of the PGA Tour's commercial businesses and rights — such as the rights to televise its tournaments, which garner hundreds of millions of dollars annually — will be owned by a new, as-of-yet unnamed for-profit entity. That entity will also own LIV Golf as well as the commercial and business rights of the PGA European Tour, known as the DP World Tour.

The board of directors for the new for-profit entity will be chaired by Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, who also oversees LIV. Three other members of the board's executive committee will be current members of the PGA Tour's board, and the tour will appoint the majority of the board and hold a majority voting interest.

With the PGA Tour controlling the for-profit holding company and remaining in charge of administering its own tournaments, it may seem as though the PGA Tour will forever remain the dominant voice in men's professional golf. But that could change.

The Public Investment Fund will invest "billions," according to al-Rumayyan, into the new for-profit entity, and it will also hold "the exclusive right to further invest in the new entity, including a right of first refusal on any capital that may be invested in the new entity, including into the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and DP World Tour," according to the release.

If the Public Investment Fund invests more money — because the economy goes south and sponsors pull out of tournaments, for instance — in the for-profit entity, it will surely demand more board seats and greater voting rights, potentially tilting control of men's professional golf toward Saudi Arabia.

Kevin Draper

What does this merger mean for the Department of Justice's antitrust inquiry into the PGA Tour? In short: Not much.

For about a year, cheered on by LIV Golf, the Justice Department has been investigating the tight-knit relationship between the PGA Tour and other powerful entities in golf, and whether there has been any collusion within the Official World Golf Rankings. A number of high-profile LIV players, like Phil Mickelson, have been interviewed in the inquiry, and lawyers representing the PGA Tour met with Justice Department officials in Washington as recently as last month.

But while Tuesday's merger will end litigation between LIV and the PGA Tour, it will not necessarily change the Justice Department's case. The department's inquiry has looked into allegations of past conduct; if there was any illegal conduct, a merger does not prevent the PGA Tour from being punished for it.

"The announcement of a merger doesn't forgive past sins," said Bill Baer, who led the Justice Department's antitrust division during the Obama administration.

In fact, the merger could cause the Justice Department to even more closely scrutinize the PGA Tour, for a separate but related reason.

The federal government, through the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, reviews over 1,000 mergers for approval each year. It is not yet clear which agency will lead the review of the PGA Tour and LIV's proposed merger, but if it is the Justice Department, it will certainly scrutinize what looks to be on its face "a merger to monopoly, eliminating competition between these two competing professional golf organizations," Baer said.

The Department of Justice declined to comment on the merger announcement.

Victor Mather

PGA Tour officials and LIV leaders hailed the announcement on Tuesday that their competing golf series would be joining forces, but players were split on the news. Here's what they were saying:

"After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love." — PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, who is expected to be the chief executive of the new entity.

"There is no question that the LIV model has been positively transformative for golf. We believe there are opportunities for the game to evolve while also maintaining its storied history and tradition." — The Public Investment Fund governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who will become chairman of the board of the merged tour.

"Awesome day today." — Phil Mickelson, who left the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf.

"Nothing like finding out through Twitter that we’re merging with a tour that we said we’d never do that with." — Mackenzie Hughes, PGA Tour player.

"Very curious how many people knew this deal was happening. About 5-7 people? Player run organization right?" — Michael Kim, PGA Tour player.

"This is one of the saddest days in the history of professional golf. I do believe that the governing bodies, the entities, the professional entities, have sacrificed their principles for profits." — Brandel Chamblee, a Golf Channel analyst who has been sharply critical of the LIV Tour.

"Welfare check on Chamblee." — LIV golfer Brooks Koepka, referring to Chamblee, who last week declared that "any yielding to or agreement with them is a deal with a murderous dictator."

"Now that we’re all friends, is it too late for us to workshop some of these team names?" — Max Homa, PGA Tour player, referring to LIV teams like Crushers, Iron Heads and Majesticks.

Kevin Draper

While the merger is a tectonic shift for golf, nothing will change immediately in how fans watch golf. The PGA Tour, LIV Tour and DP World Tour are expected to proceed as scheduled and separately, at least through 2023. Afterward, it is unclear whether LIV will continue, and whether LIV golfers will apply to re-join the PGA Tour or DP World Tour.

Ahmed al-Omran

Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi state entity bankrolling LIV, the Public Investment Fund, said the agreement was reached after he held talks with PGA Tour officials in London. "The way we’re doing our partnership, it's gonna be really big in many senses," he said during an appearance on CNBC.

Ahmed al-Omran

"We will be investing in the game of golf and doing many new things that I think will have better engagement from the players, the fans, the broadcasters, the sponsors, everyone else," Al-Rumayyan said. He added that the PIF would invest "billions of dollars" into the sport without giving a specific timeline. "Whatever it takes," he said.

Eric Lipton

The Trump family, which has been the host of LIV tournaments in the United States and a big booster of the series’ efforts to break away from the PGA Tour, expects to continue to see tournaments played at its golf courses once the merger is complete.

"This merger is a wonderful thing for the game of golf," Eric Trump said in an interview on Tuesday. "I truly believe that."

His father, Donald J. Trump, also praised the deal. On Truth Social, the former president's social media platform and personal megaphone, he wrote: "Great news from LIV Golf. A big, beautiful, and glamorous deal for the wonderful world of golf."

The LIV series has been a boon for the Trump family, which lost major tournaments after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the capitol, including the one of golf's four majors, the 2022 P.G.A. Championship. That tournament had been scheduled to be played at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey, but its organizer, the P.G.A. of America, stripped the club of the hosting rights days after the capitol attack.

Last July, just before the first LIV tournament was played at Trump National Bedminster, Mr. Trump predicted that the series would ultimately merge, and he suggested that players that stayed loyal to the PGA Tour were making a financial mistake.

"All of those that remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA, in all its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you will get nothing but a big ‘thank you’ from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year," Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social in July 2022. "If you don't take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were."

LIV has tournaments scheduled this year at Trump-owned golf courses in Florida and New Jersey, and it just completed a tournament at a Trump course in Virginia. Negotiations are underway for more potential tournaments at Trump-owned facilities next year, though it is now unclear if the series will continue in its current format.

When asked if the Trump family had played a role in urging the PGA and LIV groups to merge, Eric Trump on Tuesday declined to comment. But he did say that the family has close friends developed over many years in the golf world, including those associated with the PGA and LIV groups.

Ahmed Al Omran

The deal to merge the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, the rival league financed by billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, was seen as a victory for Saudi Arabia on multiple levels.

The merger marked the greatest success to date of Saudi Arabia's ambition to become a player in global sports. From the outset, its billion-dollar play for control of golf seemed like nothing less than an attempt to seize control of an entire sport.

Now, by merging with the PGA Tour, the oil-rich kingdom has gained a foothold that guarantees it outsize influence in the game's future. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi state entity bankrolling LIV, the Public Investment Fund, will become chairman of the new golf organization. The sovereign wealth fund will have right of first refusal on new investments in the merged tour, according to the statement announcing the merger.

The rival tours had clashed for months in litigation that will now draw to a close, so the deal will protect Mr. Al-Rumayyan, a golf aficionado, from the prospect of being deposed and scrutinized in American courtrooms. He also serves as chairman of Aramco, the Saudi state oil company, which has been a major sponsor of Formula 1 racing.

The deal could also lend legitimacy to the kingdom's entry as a major player in global sports in the form of a serious partner and not just a well-funded disrupter.

Critics have accused Saudi Arabia of using its spending power in sports to distract from its poor human rights record, but Saudi officials have repeatedly rejected these allegations.

At the same time, this deal could serve as a blueprint for future moves as the kingdom grows its ambitions to further expand its influence and reach in sports and entertainment. ‌‌

By establishing a start-up golf tour that rose rapidly to become enough of a threat for the PGA Tour and bring them to the negotiation table, Saudi Arabia could see potential to do the same in other arenas. Under the terms of the deal, the Public Investment Fund holds veto power on bringing any new investors, giving themselves insurance from any possible dilution of their power in the new arrangement.

The sovereign wealth fund has already managed to achieve a quick return for their investment in Newcastle United as the English soccer club qualified for the UEFA Champions League merely 18 months after it was purchased.

The announcement of the merger with the PGA Tour comes less than one year since LIV's first event in June 2022.

In addition to soccer and golf, Saudi Arabia is eyeing investments in cricket, tennis and e-sports via Savvy Games Group, which is backed by the sovereign wealth fund. The group plans to invest $37.8 billion to make Saudi Arabia a global hub for gaming.

The kingdom has also served as host to major sports events including Formula 1 races, major boxing matches and WWE as part of plans to diversify its economy away from heavy reliance on oil.

Andrew Das

Golf is not the only sport where Saudi Arabia is looking to increase its influence: It is also making a major play in soccer.

Its most prominent investment to date was its purchase last year of the English Premier League team Newcastle United, a deal that gave the kingdom, through its huge Public Investment Fund, a foothold in the world's richest soccer competition. But Saudi Arabia is also bidding to host soccer's World Cup in 2030, and this week the country's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, announced that the PIF would invest more than $1 billion in the country's domestic league in hopes of making it one of the 10 best leagues in the world.

As Tariq Panja and Ahmed Al Omran reported in The Times last week, the plan is focused on attracting more than a dozen of the world's best players to the Saudi league by offering them some of the richest deals in sports history. Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time world player of the year, moved to Saudi Arabia in January, and reports of nine-figure offers to others — including Lionel Messi — are rampant. The French striker Karim Benzema accepted one this week: He will join the Jeddah-based club Al-Ittihad in a multiyear deal that will make him one of the world's best-paid players.

Similar in ambition to the Saudi-financed LIV series in golf, the kingdom's plan for soccer involves the PIF. This week it took a controlling stake in four of the Saudi league's biggest clubs in what appears to be a centralized effort — supported at the highest levels of the Saudi state — to turn the country's domestic league, a footnote on the global soccer stage, into a destination for top talent.

Victor Mather

After two years of sniping, lawsuits and ill will, the major men's golf tours agreed to merge on Tuesday. The blockbuster announcement came as a surprise given the fierce competition and legal action among the tours. Here's what we know, and don't know.

The PGA Tour, which runs golf in North America; the PGA European Tour, which is known as the DP World Tour and holds events in much of the rest of the world; and the upstart LIV Tour agreed to merge their operations.

The Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which spent billions to launch the LIV Tour, will invest in the new company, and the governor of that fund will become its chairman.

All the lawsuits among the tours will be ended as part of the deal.

The LIV Tour started last year and offered big-name players from the other tours huge sums to jump ship. Many did, notably Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Cameron Smith. Some veterans like Phil Mickelson also joined. Those players were suspended from the PGA Tour as a result.

Others, including Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, did not take reported offers. Many players and officials of the PGA Tour were sharply critical of LIV, both for dividing the golf world and for associating with the Saudi government and its poor human rights record.

There is a lot we don't know at this point. The LIV Tour had team events as a focus of its model, and in its statement, the PGA Tour mentioned that the tours planned to "grow team golf going forward."

But there are many unknowns. Will the tours continue to operate separately? The statement referred only to "a cohesive schedule of events."

Will the enormous disparity between the LIV purses and the purses on the other tours remain? Will LIV continue to hold 54-hole, three-day tournaments with shotgun starts and no cuts, while the other tours maintain their traditional four-day formats?

The PGA Tour did say that the tours would develop a process for LIV players who want to reapply for membership with the two older tours after the 2023 season.

Kevin Draper

It is hard to overstate how surprising this news is. Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour and an architect of the merger, once laid out the case against the Saudi-backed LIV in stark moral terms. "I would ask any player that has left, or any player that would ever consider leaving, have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour," Monahan said last year.

Alan Blinder

In a "privileged and confidential" memorandum to PGA Tour players on Tuesday, Commissioner Jay Monahan said the Saudi wealth fund will hold a minority stake in the new, for-profit company that will encompass the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and the DP World Tour, as the European Tour is now marketed. Monahan is going to meet with players later Tuesday at a PGA Tour event in Toronto.

Alan Blinder

At last year's U.S. Open, which came right after the first LIV competition near London, the mood was tense. Next week's U.S. Open, scheduled to be played in Los Angeles, is virtually certain to carry a different vibe.

Alan Blinder

It is safe to assume that former PGA Tour players who left for LIV will ultimately be welcomed back into the fold. In their joint statement on Tuesday, the tour and the wealth fund said they expected to develop "a fair and objective process for any players who desire to re-apply for membership" with the PGA Tour. Among the big names who joined LIV: Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith.

Alan Blinder

The agreement between Saudi Arabia's wealth fund and its erstwhile rivals is a watershed in global sports. About a year after LIV Golf tore onto the scene, it has prompted the wholesale reshuffling of a sport more hidebound than most. And the wealth fund has shown immense interest in other sports, including soccer and Formula 1 racing.

Alan Blinder

The PGA Tour and LIV Golf, the insurgent league bankrolled by billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, said on Tuesday that they had agreed to a merger, ending a bitter and costly fight for supremacy of men's professional golf that had divided top players, everyday fans and corporate sponsors.

The merger represented the most stunning success to date of Saudi Arabia's ambition to become a player in global sports. Yet unlike its purchase of a Premier League soccer team or its sponsorship of events as diverse as boxing cards and Formula 1 auto races, its billion-dollar play for control of golf seemed from the start like nothing less than an attempt to seize control of an entire sport — one that in the United States has occupied a rarefied place in the sports firmament for more than a century.

LIV Golf had sparked a crisis for the PGA Tour, which has scrambled to reinvent its economic model as it has watched some of its biggest stars switch circuits. But LIV itself has also been a target of fierce criticism, immense skepticism and bitter litigation. Although much about the circuit's operations remains unclear — many documents that would reveal details are under court seal — some information about its structure and its operations has emerged in legal filings, interviews, business records and internal documents reviewed by The New York Times. And some LIV critics contend that the sovereign wealth fund is using sports to distract from Saudi Arabia's record of human rights abuses.

Now, by merging with the PGA Tour, LIV Golf has gained a foothold that guarantees it outsize influence in the game's future after a long struggle to break through, especially in the United States, where the PGA Tour has long dominated men's professional golf. The governor of the Saudi state entity bankrolling LIV, the Public Investment Fund, will become chairman of the new golf organization, which was created so quickly that it was announced before it even had a name.

Here are a few other notable parts of the deal:

The Public Investment Fund also will have right of first refusal on new investments in the merged tour, according to the statement announcing the merger. That leaves open the possibility for Saudi Arabia to take more ownership of the sport in the future should the tour need to raise more capital.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, the wealth fund and the PGA Tour said the former rivals would "implement a plan to grow these combined commercial businesses, drive greater fan engagement and accelerate growth initiatives already underway."

Under the terms of the tentative agreement, the Public Investment Fund will at first be the exclusive investor in the blended operation, along with the established tours, which includes the DP World Tour, and LIV. Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, is expected to be the new group's chief executive, with Yasir al-Rumayyan, the wealth fund's governor, installed as its chairman.

The Trump family, an early and eager partner of the Saudi-backed series, took a victory lap after the merger was announced.