Furious after being blindsided by the PGA Tour’s deal with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, a band of top golfers won a series of concessions from the beleaguered circuit’s commissioner — including the elevation of Tiger Woods to the tour’s board — in a star-driven rebuke of the tour.
The journey announced the changes on Tuesday, a day after dozens of top players wrote to Jay Monahan, the tour’s commissioner, demanding significant overhauls.
The demands detailed in Monday’s letter amount to a dramatic effort to take back power in a circuit that got its modern start after a player rebellion in the late 1960s. The players, including Woods, Patrick Cantlay, Rickie Fowler, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler, said secret negotiations toward a temporary deal with the Saudi wealth fund violated the principle that the tour should be played on players and run by them.
The addition of Woods to the board, one of several changes Monahan agreed to with the signed acknowledgment, will allow the players to go beyond the six to five independent board members, who come from the worlds of business and law. . In addition, the players want to change the rules of the board to avoid a repeat of the negotiations with the Saudis, where some independent board members acted without the support of the players on the board.
A final deal with the Saudi wealth fund would not clear the board, the players insisted, without one of their advisers, Colin Neville of merchant bank Raine, reviewing the tour files and the terms of the deals with players.
“This is a critical point for the tour, and the players will do their best to ensure that any changes made to tour operations are in the best interests of all tour stakeholders, including those fans, sponsors and players,” Woods said in a statement.
“The players are grateful to Commissioner Monahan for agreeing to address our concerns, and we look forward to having him at the table to make the right decisions for the future of the game that we all want,” Woods added. “I have my confidence in him moving forward with these changes.”
Continued support for Monahan was uncertain entering the week. In a dramatic show of force, more than 40 players, including Woods, the five sitting members of the board and the 16 members of a key advisory council, signed the letter to Monahan.
Monahan quickly agreed to the players’ proposals. “I am committed to taking the necessary steps to restore any lost trust or confidence that occurred as a result of the surprise announcement,” he said in a statement.
Player outrage over the wealth fund deal began the moment it was announced in June. The tour hailed the agreement, which seeks to create a new for-profit entity combining the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league with the tour’s commercial operations and the DP World Tour, formerly the European Tour, as a step forward for a split sport .
But the players were, for the most part, hours of warning about the deal.
Instead, Monahan and two independent board members, James J. Dunne III and Edward D. Herlihy, handled the wealth fund talks on behalf of the tour without informing the other board members. A handful of players, including board members like McIlroy, were told of the deal shortly before it was announced. Most of the other tour players found out about it when it became public.
Time did not diminish their doubts.
“We still don’t have a lot of clarity on what’s going on, and that’s a little worrying,” Scheffler, the world’s top player and a golfer who is usually eager to stay out of the tour’s internal politics, said last month. . “They keep saying it’s a player-run organization, and we don’t really have the information we need.”
In recent weeks, according to a person with knowledge of the deliberations, the players have spoken privately about the changes they want to see from the tour to which they have remained loyal. Monday’s letter to Monahan reflected those conversations, and Monahan was quick to agree.
The commissioner and his tour have been targets of fierce criticism, in part because a deal with the Saudis seems highly unlikely after a year marked by acrimony.
In 2022, LIV began poaching top tour players, including Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, starting an all-out war for the future of golf. The players sued the PGA Tour, alleging it illegally discouraged players from joining LIV, and the tour countersued. The tour also highlighted Saudi Arabia’s human rights record at every turn, with Monahan memorably asking on national television, “Have you ever apologized for being a member of the PGA Tour?”
The interim agreement ended litigation between the parties, but otherwise lacked many important binding commitments. That didn’t stop intense questions about how the tour’s campaign quickly turned into an embrace against the Saudis, leaving the wealth fund to wield enormous power in golf.
Lawmakers in both the House and Senate are targeting the tour’s tax-exempt status, and tour leaders went before a congressional subcommittee last month to answer questions about the deal. The Justice Department is investigating whether the tour violated antitrust laws, an investigation that has already scuttled part of the deal.
But the players are always among the biggest obstacles to a final deal. When LIV offered huge sums to players to defect — LIV’s chief executive, Greg Norman, was said which Woods turned down north of $700 million — many decided to stay on tour. They spoke with disdain for LIV’s team golf concept, its poor fields and even the length of its events, and joined the chorus accusing Saudi Arabia of using golf to burnish its image.
Then came the settlement and, soon, the revolt.
The tour said last week that Neville, the banker, would advise the players on a potential deal and that they would have a say in selecting a new independent board member to replace Randall Stephenson, the former AT&T chairman. who resigned due to doubts about the board. lack of oversight in a major decision. The tour also said it was working on a “financially significant” plan to compensate players who didn’t take LIV money, and it again hinted that LIV players who want to return to the tour will likely face penalties.
Monday brought a new set of requests and quick approval from tour leaders.
A seat on the board for Woods is no guarantee of player unity, however. What the world’s richest and most famous players want from a final deal may differ from what fringe tour professionals, who are more numerous, want.
Woods, who won his 15th major championship in 2019 but has rarely played since due to major injuries, refused to join LIV and bitterly criticized its playing style, but his views on a potential deal in the investment fund is unknown. He has not said anything publicly about the tentative agreement, and his agent, Mark Steinberg, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
No current player, however, commands as much public influence as Woods — just as no current player has as much private power as he does. Even during his recovery, Woods remained in close contact with several tour golfers, most of whom attribute the circuit’s financial success and contemporary popularity largely to Woods.
“When Tiger speaks, his voice is so powerful,” Gary Woodland, a US Open winner who turned pro in 2007, said in an interview in June.
The players believe that Woods’ arrival on the board, which also includes the PGA of America’s president, will do much to ensure particular unrest among their ranks, some of whom have recently contemplated potential path to challenge the interim wealth fund agreement.
The players are expected to meet with Monahan next week, when the tour holds an event in Memphis.