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[NickFire]

In completely unexpected news, the PGA and LIV Tour have not only called a truce, but have agreed to merge.

'One umbrella': PGA Tour, LIV, World Tour unify

The PGA Tour and DP World Tour have joined forces with the LIV Golf League "to unify the game of golf ... under one umbrella," Jay Monahan said.

www.espn.com

I'm intrigued as to what this will mean for the game, but don't really have any strong feelings about it. Last I saw any news about LIV it was related to some local affiliates cutting to regularly scheduled programming during a playoff hole. Figured it would end up fizzling out after that. Must have been doing better than I thought I'm guessing or else why would PGA get involved with them?

One thing I am confident of is that this must be a very tough pill to swallow for any PGA player who refused a guaranteed LIV contract.

 

[jason10mm]

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? Weren't these guys banning players for going from one to the other?

 

[NickFire]

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? Weren't these guys banning players for going from one to the other?

I think it was primarily LIV players banned from PGA tournaments (outside of prior winners for majors at least). But I otherwise had your same reaction.

 

[jufonuk]

 

[diffusionx]

lol so much for the PGA being so high-minded and moral to ever do business with the "Saudi Tour." Turns out it was always about the money, Jay Monahan is a piece of crap like the other commissioners.

 

[Amory]

Not a fan. The PGA butchered this whole situation from start to finish and frankly it’s really turned me off of pro golf.

I love the game and there is some amazing talent at the professional level but I think I probably won’t watch anymore after this. Hypocritical scumbags top to bottom.

 

[Naked Lunch]

Does this mean theyre going to blast ACDC during every hole and wind the crowd up during drives like its a Happy Gilmore sequel?
I tried watching Liv and it was a complete joke. Having no cutline meant no one had to actually care about winning either.
Golf is diggity dead.

 

[SlimySnake]

Absolutely disgusting stuff. This is why I always roll my eyes at people trying to paint sports atheletes as role models and watch corporations take the moral high ground. With Ronaldo, Benzema and soon Messi going to saudi to get paid hundreds of millions of dollars, and now PGA doing a complete 180, I am just about done with sports.

 

[EverydayBeast]

 

[Jinzo Prime]

The fact that they're announcing this during Gay Month is hilarious. Money talks, I guess.

 

[DKehoe]

Absolutely disgusting stuff. This is why I always roll my eyes at people trying to paint sports atheletes as role models and watch corporations take the moral high ground. With Ronaldo, Benzema and soon Messi going to saudi to get paid hundreds of millions of dollars, and now PGA doing a complete 180, I am just about done with sports.

Those players going to Saudi is so weird to me. If you're a young up-and-coming player I can kinda get playing somewhere like that for the money. You've only got a limited amount of time in your career as an athlete and it could end at any moment so you want to do what you can to make sure your family is financially secure. It's still not great but a lot of us would probably struggle to turn that down. But guys like Ronaldo, Benzema and Messi have more money than they or their family will ever need so why do that? I guess it's just that people will always want more.

 

[AJUMP23]

I wonder if reporters are going to ask about the PGA taking Saudi money. I find this surprising because I thought the PGA hated LIV. And LIV just loved giving money to people and getting them away from the PGA.

 

[Trogdor1123]

I wonder if reporters are going to ask about the PGA taking Saudi money. I find this surprising because I thought the PGA hated LIV. And LIV just loved giving money to people and getting them away from the PGA.

PGA love money more I guess

Imagine Rory right now… was offered like 200 million or something but stood by the pga… wow all for nothing

 

[Jinzo Prime]

I wonder if reporters are going to ask about the PGA taking Saudi money. I find this surprising because I thought the PGA hated LIV. And LIV just loved giving money to people and getting them away from the PGA.

Looks like it was all bullshit in the end. Just a money game.

 

[AJUMP23]

PGA love money more I guess

Imagine Rory right now… was offered like 200 million or something but stood by the pga… wow all for nothing

And he passed up on marrying that tennis player.

 

[Amory]

I wonder if reporters are going to ask about the PGA taking Saudi money. I find this surprising because I thought the PGA hated LIV. And LIV just loved giving money to people and getting them away from the PGA.

I’m sure it will be the very first question at the press conference. And there’s really no good way to give a diplomatic fake answer because of how shitty this situation is.

The PGA should just be honest for once and say look, they siphoned off too many of the best players in the world, and we did what we had to do to get them back.

 

[jonnyp]

The LIV players must be laughing so hard right now.

 

[Nydius]

I’m just over here laughing my ass off at this news.

The high-and-mighty PGA had no qualms doing business with Saudi “blood money” before the LIV split and only became morally outraged about it when the Saudi’s decided to make a competing league the PGA couldn’t control.

After the split, PGA went full scorched Earth, acting like the sole arbiters of professional golf. It was never about “morals” or “blood money” or “human rights” because if it were the PGA would have cut out Saudi and Chinese involvement years ago. It was completely about control over the sport.

PGA people ended up looking like complete ballsacks as they continually and repeatedly attacked the LIV golf players, many of whom were top tier PGA talent just a year before. Brandel Chamblee tried waging a one man Twitter war against LIV and only ended up looking like a petulant little child. Just a week ago, Jack Nicklaus was old man shakes fist at cloud meme, saying LIV tour golfers weren’t real golfers anymore. Wonder how those two are holding up today.

“No one will watch LIV”, and yet Adelaide and Singapore were sold out, the only tickets available for Tulsa were Sunday gallery general admission, and I don’t know about DC but their crowds looked pretty similar to Tulsa, minus the rain day we had here at Broken Arrow that Sunday.

The minute a LIV tour golfer won a PGA event or Major, this was inevitable. I bet this would have happened shortly after the Masters had Koepka won.

 

[jufonuk]

Suddenly I like golf

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

youtube.com

 

[AJUMP23]

Tiger turned down almost a billion apparently.

 

[Fox Mulder]

The players that turned down huge bags from LIV really got screwed for nothing.

 

[AJUMP23]

The players that turned down huge bags from LIV really got screwed for nothing.

 

[AJUMP23]

The merger is a “BIG, BEAUTIFUL, AND GLAMOROUS DEAL” for golf, Trump, who hosted several LIV tournaments at his golf courses, declared on his Truth Social platform.

Mickelson, a PGA Tour veteran who received more than $100 million to defect to LIV, tweeted Tuesday was an “awesome day,” attaching a smiley-face.

Brooks Koepka, who became the first active LIV golfer to win a major last month with his PGA Championship victory, called for a “welfare check” on Golf Channel commentator and unabashed LIV critic Brandel Chamblee in a tweet.

Collin Morikawa, the 18th-ranked golfer in the world and a PGA Tour loyalist, said he found about the merger on Twitter, while world No. 67 Mackenzie Hughes wrote: “Nothing like finding out through Twitter that we’re merging with a tour that we said we’d never do that with.”
The PGA Tour’s most notable defenders Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have yet to comment on the news.

 

[RainblowDash]

That’s really odd, were they having low ratings individually?

 

[rkofan87]

wtfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff this is nuts not a golf guy but wow.

 

[theclaw135]

Is there a recommended place I can watch older LIV events? I'm curious how they differ from golf as we know it, under real-world conditions on the course.

 

[AJUMP23]

Is there a recommended place I can watch older LIV events? I'm curious how they differ from golf as we know it, under real-world conditions on the course.

YouTube has highlights.

 

[M.W.]

Golf is dead.

 

[Nydius]

Golf is dead.

Such hyperbole.

The PGA enforced Jim Crow and took racists’ money for decades. They took Saudi money long before LIV, They take Chinese money. All their morality bullshit was just that: bullshit. They had no moral high ground to stand on.

You’re free to not like it, but that’s a you problem.

Golf is fine.

 

[theclaw135]

I would hope nobody expects the upper crust to clean up their image. Exclusive clubs with their suspiciously steep fees, and using dubious rules to bar women from full membership.

 

[AJUMP23]

I know it is trump....but this is a good call. Not advocating Trump support.

 

[chromhound]

Who is that

 

[NickFire]

So morning sports radio has been playing audio clips of the top PGA guy's prior PR about the message defecting players were sending to 9/11 victim's relatives. I've got to believe he will be bailing out with a golden parachute as soon as this deal is final. Not sure Goodell could even weather that level of hypocrisy.