Woods: LIV deal unclear
A plan for possibly welcoming back LIV defectors to the PGA Tour “in the longer term” remains unclear, according to Tiger Woods, who is a key part of talks as a member of the tour’s policy board.
Woods, who returns to play at this week’s $30m Genesis Invitational, also confirmed he’d had no conversations with Saudi Public Investment Fund boss Yasir Al-Rumayyan but was still hopeful of a cash injection from the LIV backers and that they are “part of our tour” as negotiations over the proposed deal continued to lag.
Last week world No.1 Scottie Scheffler suggested there should be some sort of penalty for any player who went to LIV who wants to rejoin the PGA Tour if and when the framework agreement with the PIF occurs.
Woods said there wasn’t as yet a way for that to happen.
“We’re looking into all the different models for pathways back,” he said. “What that looks like, what the impact is for the players who have stayed and who have not left and how we make our product better going forward, there is no answer to that right now.
“We’re looking at a very different – varying degrees of ideas and what that looks like in the short term, we don’t know. We don’t even know in the longer term what that looks like.
“Trust me, there’s daily, weekly emails and talks about this and what this looks like for our tour.”
Woods said team golf, a key plank of the LIV tour, would be part of the future PGA Tour, beyond his TGL stadium golf league, which had its start delayed when the venue in Florida was badly damaged.
He said he was confident there would be a deal with the PIF and that the $1.5bn investment from Strategic Sports Group would be pivotal in any such advancements