Sawt Falasteen - Trump hopeful of 'great' PGA-LIV golf merger

Speaking on Air Force One as he traveled to Florida ahead of this weekend's LIV Golf Miami event at Trump National Doral, the US leader said he believed a merger was inevitable.

“Ultimately, hopefully the two tours are going to merge," Trump told reporters. "That'll be good. I'm involved in that, too, but hopefully we're going to get the two tours to merge.

"You've got the PGA Tour, you've got the LIV tour. And I think having them merge would be a great thing."

Trump, a keen golfer, has hosted two rounds of recent talks at the White House between leaders of the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabia-financed LIV as the sport attempts to move on from the enmity which erupted after LIV's entry in 2021.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said earlier this month that Trump's intervention in ongoing negotiations had "significantly bolstered" hopes of reunifying the sport.

However a report in Britain's The Guardian newspaper on Thursday said negotiations had reached an impasse after the PGA Tour failed to deliver "serious concessions" in exchange for a $1.5 billion investment from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), the sovereign wealth fund which bankrolls LIV.

The Guardian report citing unidentified sources said PIF had sought assurances from the PGA Tour that the LIV circuit would continue following any deal, and that the fund's governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, would be appointed as co-chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises.

However the PGA Tour rejected both of those requests in a response to LIV sent on Monday, according to The Guardian.

News of the deadlock comes ahead of the first major of the year at next week's Masters at Augusta National, where 12 players from LIV Golf will tee off against top rivals from the PGA Tour.

Five-time major winner Brooks Koepka, one of the highest-profile players to defect to LIV Golf, admitted this week that he was disappointed that the Saudi-funded circuit had not progressed further in its four seasons.

"I think we all hoped it would have been a little bit further along, and that's no secret," he said. "But they're making progress and it seems to be going in the right direction."

Z.Ramadan--SF-PST