Tiger Woods’ appointment as one of the player directors by the PGA Tour earlier this year was said to make the golf circuit more player-driven. Now, reports suggest that the 15-time major champion will have a massive say on the LIV Golf players’ future participation in the future PGA Tour events once the final call on the merger is made.
PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and PIF will have to finalize the final framework agreement before the end of 2023. This certainly means amendments can be made to the LIV golfers getting some sort of leverage to participate in the PGA Tour’s events. But that will also depend on how the six-player directors, including Tiger Woods, think. They have enough authority to make or modify changes in the final agreement.
Tiger Woods Has The PGA-PIF Merger Framework Agreement Deadline in Mind
The PGA Tour and PIF merger deal announcement was made back in June 2023. After multiple rounds of discussion, December 31, 2023 was finalized to make a call on the framework agreement. In August, the PGA Tour announced Tiger Woods as the sixth player director on the Tour’s policy board.
During the 2023 Hero World Challenge, Tiger Woods spoke to the media and assured that the unexpected thing that happened with players earlier when the three parties announced a surprise merger, would not happen again. He emphasized that the six-player directors would ensure that the PGA Tour is still a player-driven organization. The 15-time major winner said,
“The overall emotion is we can’t let that happen again; how do we do that? Having six player-directors, we control the board and what we’re going to do. We can’t let what transpired without our involvement happen again.”
Later during the 2023 PNC Championship, Tiger Woods expressed his gratitude to be part of the decision-making for the upcoming merger deal. The 82-time PGA Tour champion added that he was frustrated with the “slowness and governance change” that they wanted.
“I’m pleased to add the process and frustrated in some of the slowness and governance change that we want to happen.”
Tiger Woods mentioned the deadline of the merger deal and shared that there was a timetable for how things would happen. He added that all the parties involved were taking up the deal aggressively and the player directors were trying to make the process a lot better.
“December 31 is coming up quickly. There is a timetable there that we would like to implement some of these changes that haven’t taken place. All the parties are talking and aggressively trying to get a deal done. We’re trying to make sure the process is better. Implementation of governance,” Tiger Woods said.
Now it remains to be seen how Tiger Woods and other player directors feel about the potential merger deal that is to be finalized. If there are amendments made to LIV Golf players’ participation in the PGA Tour events, it would depend on how Woods and his colleagues on the policy board think about that proposal. But if they are allowed, it would be a real win situation for the rebel players, especially Jon Rahm who recently made a move to the Breakaway series.
