Hey, America: We can love Phil Mickelson again!
The PGA Tour announced Tuesday it is merging with LIV Golf. And all the lawsuits are off.
No, really. From the press release:
The PGA TOUR, DP World Tour and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) today announced a landmark agreement to unify the game of golf, on a global basis. The parties have signed an agreement that combines PIF’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf) with the commercial businesses and rights of the PGA TOUR and DP World Tour into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity to ensure that all stakeholders benefit from a model that delivers maximum excitement and competition among the game’s best players.
(…)
Notably, today’s announcement will be followed by a mutually agreed end to all pending litigation between the participating parties. Further, the three organizations will work cooperatively and in good faith to establish a fair and objective process for any players who desire to re-apply for membership with the PGA TOUR or the DP World Tour following the completion of the 2023 season and for determining fair criteria and terms of re-admission, consistent with each Tour’s policies.
Is Greg Norman going to show up at the next PGA Tour event like when Eric Bischoff walked out on Monday Night Raw?
This is … quite the turnaround. The PGA Tour threw every public relations bomb it could at Saudi Arabia and its PIF when the renegade league launched. Including enlisting many media friends and sycophants in the attack. And now everyone is not only making nice, but going into business together and talking about synergy and stakeholders and “maximum excitement?”
It just proves what we wrote last year: The PGA Tour never really cared all that much about human rights and Sept. 11 families and everything else it decried. It was just throwing an economic temper-tantrum because it was afraid LIV might take some money out of its pocket. So it went overboard in its offensive, not only with the hyperbole and PR war but with foolish moves like kicking LIV golfers off the PGA Tour and revoking Henrik Stenson’s Ryder Cup candidacy.
If the PGA Tour had no-sold LIV, it would have been just fine. The attention LIV got was mostly driven by the PGA giving it to it. Instead, the PGA Tour lashed out and boxed itself into a corner. And now it just had to merge with the Michael Scott Paper Company, leaving no doubt it is a poorly-run, and colossally hypocritical, operation.
James Kratch can be reached at james.kratch@xlmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @jameskratch.
