LIV Golf starts season amid top-secret merger talks

WASHINGTON: Reigning Masters champion Jon Rahm will be LIV Golf’s newest star when the Saudibacked upstart series launches a third season on Friday as questions abound regarding its future.

LIV’s 2024 campaign was in doubt since a framework merger agreement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) – LIV Golf’s financial backers – was unveiled last June to controversy.

Talks have extended beyond a Dec 31 deadline to reach a deal bringing all sides together in a partnership, so in the meantime, both LIV and the PGA Tour sorted out a 2024 schedule, LIV keeping its US$25 million, 54-hole event format with shotgun starts and individual and team titles.

While LIV’s future relies more on topsecret talks, the present is focused on a 14-event campaign.

Adding to the pressure to complete the agreement were more defections to LIV, notably by Spanish star Rahm, ranked third in the world, in December and England’s Tyrrell Hatton in January.

Rahm said the weeks before he went to LIV were difficult sorting out negotiations and the decision, then it was tough keeping quiet about it.

“It was nice to have some time after that before my first competition round in LIV Golf to process and then refocus and get to work,” Rahm said Wednesday.

“I feel confident. I feel good. It’s one of the odd parts. At this point I would have maybe already played three, four events, so it’s getting used to that. I’m very used to having to grind a little bit more during Christmas and early in the year to start competing.”

The PGA Tour said Wednesday that PIF talks have progressed but no deal has been finalised, so LIV enters its season opener at Mayakoba in Mexico uncertain what lies beyond.

The PGA Tour announced a deal Wednesday with Strategic Sports Group, a set of sports team owners, investing up to US$3 billion into a forprofit equity company.

To PGA Tour Policy Board member Jordan Spieth, that makes a LIV deal vital only to reunite golf’s elite talent, not for more funding. “I don’t think that it’s needed,” Spieth said.

“The positive there is a unification. It would be a situation we should try to have, but I’m not sure if or how or when it would get done.”