Only four events in a year witnesses stars from both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf competing against each other since 2022. After the TV ratings for round 1 of the 2024 Masters were made public, the urgency to unify the game became so much more important.
As per the reports, the opening round at Augusta National on Thursday has the best viewership numbers since 2015. A total of 3.2 million viewers turned up to ESPN’s coverage to watch the opening day of the 2024 Masters.
The quest to win a green jacket at the Masters is the first major of the season. Then, it is followed by the PGA Championship, the US Open, and the Open Championship. Since the inception of LIV Golf, its players have only seen competing with the other top PGA Tour stars at these golf major tournaments.
Although there were just 13 LIV Golfers invited to Augusta National, eight of them proceeded to the final two rounds. At some point in time, Bryson DeChambeau, who captains RangeGoats GC in the league, topped the leaderboard as well.
Despite the conversations between the PGA Tour and the PIF already in development, the deadline for the framework has been extended until further notice. But after seeing the viewership numbers in the opening round of the 2024 Masters, the urgency for the two parties to sort things out seems quite important.
PGA Tour Commissioner Has Already Remarked The Last Meeting With PIF Cheif Being “Constructive”
The men’s golf is shattered and split into two halves. One-half is the PGA Tour which has an immense history and great players associated with it. The other half is LIV Golf which started back in 2022 and has lured numerous top stars to join them.
Soon after the 2024 Players in March, the PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and the six Policy Board Player Directors met with PIF Cheif Yasir Al-Rumayyan. The meeting was held in The Bahamas and was reported to be an important step towards the betterment and unification of men’s golf.
After the meeting, Jay Monahan sent a letter to the PGA Tour membership and wrote that the conversation between them and the PIF was “constructive.”
“The conversation throughout was constructive and represents an important part of our due diligence process in selecting potential investors for PGA Tour Enterprises,” Monahan wrote. “As we continue these discussions with the PIF, we will keep you updated as much as possible, but please understand that we need to maintain our position of not conducting negotiations in public. To that end, we will provide no further comments to the media at this time.”
Back on June 6, 2023, the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, and the PIF dropped a bombshell to shock the entire golfing fraternity with a surprise merger deal. However, the deadline to reach a framework on the deal was set to be December 31, 2023.
But the negotiations were not enough for the two parties and it was eventually postponed. However, after seeing the 2024 Masters opening round TV viewership numbers, the need for a merger seems the only option to grow the game. Now, it remains to be seen how much time the parties involved take to come up with a framework for the merger deal.
