Last Tuesday, USA's President Donald Trump received a visit at the White House from PGA tour commissioner Jay Monahan and Australian Adam Scott, who is one of the player representatives on the tour's board.
Then, Trump was urged to get involved in the negotiations with the LIV tour – which is financed by authoritarian Saudi Arabia – "for the good of the game, for the good of the country, and for all involved countries", according to a statement from the PGA tour.
Played golf with Tiger Woods
”We are grateful that his (Trump's) leadership has brought us closer to a final agreement and paved the way for a reunification of professional golf for men", said the PGA chief.
Even legend and player representative Tiger Woods signed the statement, but was not present at the meeting in Washington on Tuesday, writes news agency AP. The same day, his mother Kultida passed away.
However, on Sunday morning, Woods and Donald Trump played golf together in Florida, according to the White House.
By the summer of 2023 – a little over a year after the LIV tour was created – a framework for cooperation between the tours was supposed to be in place. However, the American Justice Department expressed doubts about the cooperation and no actual agreement has been presented.
Now, President Trump has been brought in. Already on the eve of the election day in November, he spoke about the conflict.
It would take me a quarter to get that agreement in place, he said in the podcast "Let's Go!", according to AP.
Owns several courses
Golf enthusiast Trump said that he probably has bigger problems to deal with as president, but he wants to see a reunification of the world's best players.
I think we should have one tour and the best players should play on that tour.
Trump owns several golf courses and three of them have hosted tournaments on the LIV tour in recent years.
The LIV tour is said to have spent around two billion dollars to attract world stars like Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, and Jon Rahm.
The stars have been banned from playing on the PGA tour, but several of them have been allowed to play major tournaments. In almost all cases, thanks to previous successes in major tournaments.
