For the past three years we have been listening to the ongoing competition between the Saudi Arabian tour (aka the LIV Tour’) and the American PGA tour. Several American and European professionals have decided to take their talents to the Saudi tour also known as the Liv tour because that tour guarantees bigger purses, guaranteed payouts regardless of performance, fewer tournaments a year allowing more time with family and friends and a growing purse availability. Several American professionals have attempted to ignore or criticize their fellow players for jumping from the PGA in America to the Saudi tour. This is a losing battle and now the PGA players are beginning to realize that they must find some way to blend those tours in order to survive as the PGA players identities are slowly eroding. The players are looking for advice from within the Commissioner’s Office and among the more senior players on both tours. The latest attempt has been voiced by an American professional, Rory McIlroy, who believes it is possible to blend those tours into one tour. We, at “anothersview” disagree with the possibility of that ever happening. The American tour depends on funding from advertising dollars and is therefore limited by the number of sponsors, their willingness to front money for the tournaments and the number of commercial advertising spots ihatt can be shown during the TV broadcasts. However the Saudi tour is funded by the Saudi Wealth Fund which has apparently unlimited resources and therefore can continuously increase the purses on the Saudi tour without advertising dollar constraints. The real question here is: why are the Saudis even investing in the game of golf? Golf in Saudi Arabia is very limited my the climate conditions, the player interest level, the average cost to local players, and (for pros) the distance from America or Europe to the Saudi tour sites when played in Middle East. Until it becomes clear what the goal of the Saudi Wealth Fund is it will be impossible to negotiate on an honest and fully informed basis going forward toward a combined and blended one World Golf tour. Since the bulk of the funds are in the hands of the Saudis, our guess is that major concessions will need to be made to the Saudi overseer group whenever the PGA comes to the bargaining table at a disadvantage. Stay tuned for the next step.
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