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LIV Golf - All You Need To Know About The Saudi-Backed Tour

All we know about the Saudi-backed LIV Golf, one of golf's biggest talking points

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What Is The LIV Golf League?

Liv golf league schedule, liv golf league prize money, liv golf league players, liv golf players, how is liv different from the pga tour, will liv golf be on tv, who owns liv golf and why is it controversial, how have the pga tour and dp world tour responded to liv golf, does liv golf get official world golf ranking (owgr) points, which players won't be playing in the liv golf league, can the liv golf league co-exist with other circuits.

If 2022 was defined by the emergence of LIV Golf, 2023 seems certain to be dominated by its efforts to become an established player at the top of the game's hierarchy.

Once the speculation had subsided last year and the action began, June's $25m curtain-raiser at London's Centurion Club saw South African Charl Schwartzel secure the $4 million first prize. Six other regular-season events followed, each offering the same attractive purse. That enabled it to secure more high-profile signings as the season progressed, building up an impressive roster to add to the likes of Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson from the initial intake. 

By the time October's season-closing Team Championship began, the likes of Cameron Smith , Brooks Koepka , Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau had all signed too. Eventually, Johnson was crowned Individual Champion and scooped a $18m bonus for his efforts, while it was his 4 Aces team that won the finale at Trump National Doral in Florida. 

With that inaugural season now behind us, a US TV deal secured and the schedule for the 2023 season confirmed, we take a detailed look at everything we know about LIV Golf, how it has impacted the golf world as we once knew it, and what to expect in 2023.

After the eight-tournament Series of 2022, the Greg Norman-fronted circuit expands to an ambitious, $405m 14-tournament League for 2023.

Each of the regular events features three rounds with no cut, and with play commencing by shotgun start. There is also a team format with no more than 48 players making up 12 teams of four, while the action in each tournament takes place over 54 holes rather than the more traditional 72.

The concept of a breakaway league is not new to golf or in fact, Greg Norman. The former World No.1 put forward his own plans for a World Golf Tour in 1994, a lucrative, eight-field event that would showcase the game's best players as independent contractors, unfettered from the PGA Tour.

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Norman's path to 'growing the game' never came to fruition but you sense there has always been a determination to challenge golf's status quo. And so here we are, 29 years later with the game on the precipice of civil war and now an official league to rival the established ecosystem. 

The Australian is confident in the future success of his product, describing the Series as "a carrot too hard to resist." It has already taken a monumental financial investment to get the circuit off the ground and with Major champions including Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau having opted to leave the PGA Tour for LIV Golf, it seems only a matter of time before more high-calibre players go down the same path.

The 14-tournament 2023 League takes place across Mexico, the USA, Australia, Singapore, Spain, England and Saudi Arabia, and runs from February to November.

• February 24-26: Mexico - El Camaleon Golf Club
• March 17-19: Arizona, USA - The Gallery Golf Club
• March 31-April 2 : Florida, USA - Orange County National
• April 21-23: Australia - The Grange Golf Club
• April 28-30: Singapore - Sentosa Golf Club
• May 12-14: Oklahoma, USA - Cedar Ridge Golf Club
• May 26-28: Washington DC, USA - Trump National Golf Club
• June 30-July 2: Spain - Real Club Valderrama
• July 7-9: England - Centurion Country Club
• August 4-6: West Virginia, USA - The Greenbrier
• August 11-13: New Jersey, USA - Trump National Golf Club
• September 22-24: Illinois, USA - Rich Harvest Farms
• October 20-22: Florida, USA - Trump National Doral
• November 3-5: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - Royal Greens Golf & Country Club

The first 13 'regular' events each carry a total purse of $25m, comprising $20m in individual prizes and $5m for the top three teams. In each event, the winner will receive a cheque for $4m. However, one of the big attractions for players - aside from reports of huge signing on fees - is that, unlike the PGA Tour, even finishing last in an individual event guarantees $120,000. In contrast, missing the cut at a PGA Tour event ensures a player will go home with nothing. 

The League will also crown an 'Individual Champion' with a bonus pool of $30m for the top-three performers of the season - Dustin Johnson earned the title of Individual Champion in the inaugural season, pocketing an $18m performance bonus - taking his earnings in excess of $30m.  

The season-ending LIV Golf Team Championship Finale will feature a huge $50 million purse. The winning team will split $16 million four ways, with $10 million awarded to second place and $8 million to third.

In short, the financial riches of LIV Golf is almost impossible for anyone to keep up with and by and, despite the PGA Tour's attempts to do so by offering increased purses for several of its events, it comfortably eclipses the money on offer on the more established circuit.

Bryson DeChambeau speaks at LIV Golf press conference

For a long time before the 2022 season, LIV Golf participants were shrouded in mystery with multiple reports that players had signed non-disclosure agreements prohibiting them from talking about the venture.

Greg Norman teased that 36 of the top-150 in the Official World Golf Ranking, former World No.1 players, Major champions and Ryder Cup stars were either included, or to be included in future, which led to a barrage of speculation as to who had committed.

Trusted sources reported the names of many but the surprise inclusion ahead of the inaugural event was Dustin Johnson - who had reportedly been offered $125m after pledging his allegiance to the PGA Tour just a few months prior. 

Johnson was joined by the likes of Phil Mickelson, who returned from a self-inflicted hiatus for the inaugural event after anti-Saudi comments were made public, Sergio Garcia , Lee Westwood , Ian Poulter , Louis Oosthuizen and Graeme McDowell also joined, with Norman adding Major champions Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed and Brooks Koepka to the ranks at a later date. 

Henrik Stenson was a name that grabbed the headlines when it was announced he had joined the venture. The Swede, who was set to captain the European Ryder Cup in Rome in 2023, reportedly met with DP World Tour officials and informed them of his decision to join the breakaway circuit. In return, Stenson was stripped of the captaincy.  Stenson made his debut at the Bedminster event, pocketing a combined $4.375 million for winning the individual format and coming second with the Majesticks.  

Whilst they each hold their own importance, the acquisition of Cameron Smith is perhaps the most significant. Not only did the Australian win the 2022 Players Championship - the PGA Tour's flagship event - but he followed that up by winning his first Major, the 150th Open at St Andrews last July. Another player who signed last year but didn't play due to injury is Bubba Watson. He will be expected to tee it up as a regular this year. 

As for the 2023 season, six new signings have been made. Chilean Mito Pereira and Colombian Sebastian Munoz join Joaquin Niemann's Torque GC team. Elsewhere, American Brendan Steele joins Phil Mickelson's Hy Flyers GC and Dean Burmester completes the all-South African Stinger GC. New Zealander Danny Lee is another new signing, and he starts the season with Kevin Na's Iron Heads GC. Finally, six-time DP World Tour player Thomas Pieters joins Bubba Watson's Range Goats GC for the season opener.

Below is a list of players who competed for LIV Golf in 2022:

• ABRAHAM ANCER
• OLIVER BEKKER
• RICHARD BLAND
• ITTHIPAT BURANATANYARAT
• LAURIE CANTER
• EUGENIO CHACARRA
• RATCHANON "TK" CHANTANANUWAT (AM)
• BRYSON DECHAMBEAU
• HENNIE DU PLESSIS
• OLIVER FISHER
• SERGIO GARCIA
• TALOR GOOCH
• BRANDEN GRACE
• JUSTIN HARDING
• SAM HORSFIELD
• CHARLES HOWELL III
• YUKI INAMORI
• DUSTIN JOHNSON
• SADOM KAEWKANJANA
• MARTIN KAYMER
• PHACHARA KHONGWATMAI
• RYOSUKE KINOSHITA
• CHASE KOEPKA
• BROOKS KOEPKA
• JASON KOKRAK
• JINICHIRO KOZUMA
• SHERGO AL KURDI
• ANIRBAN LAHIRI
• PABLO LARRAZABAL
• MARC LEISHMAN
• VIRAJ MADAPPA
• GRAEME MCDOWELL
• PHIL MICKELSON
• JEDIAH MORGAN
• JOAQUIN NIEMANN
• SHAUN NORRIS
• ANDY OGLETREE
• LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN
• WADE ORMSBY
• CARLOS ORTIZ
• ADRIAN OTAEGUI
• TURK PETTIT
• IAN POULTER
• DAVID PUIG (AM)
• PATRICK REED
• CHARL SCHWARTZEL
• CAMERON SMITH
• TRAVIS SMYTH
• HENRIK STENSON
• HUDSON SWAFFORD
• HIDETO TANIHARA
• CAMERON TRINGALE
• PETER UIHLEIN
• HAROLD VARNER III
• SCOTT VINCENT
• LEE WESTWOOD
• BERND WIESBERGER
• BLAKE WINDRED
• MATTHEW WOLFF

Several factors differentiate LIV Golf from the PGA Tour, aside from the incredible financial backing. The format of each tournament is fundamentally different and more streamlined. Instead of a 72-hole tournament played over four days, LIV Golf events take place over three days and 52 holes.

There is also a shotgun start in LIV events, meaning all the players are one the course simultaneously. Another significant difference is the far smaller fields, which comprise just 48 players. Finally, there is an individual competition and team element to each regular LIV Golf event - with the team element expected to gain increasing prominence as a franchise model is introduced, allowing the 12 teams, led by one established captain, who can build their team franchise to gain the greatest fan followings and sponsor interest.

One of the big wins LIV Golf needed to ensure its financial viability was a lucrative TV deal. The 2022 season was show free on the LIV Golf official website and via YouTube, but it was hardly ideal for the start-up, and appeared to suffer from poor viewing figures at times.

As the 2023 season approached, it was finally announced that it had struck a multi-year TV deal with the CW Network , which will offer live coverage in the US, with confirmation to follow as to how to watch the action in other regions. As part of the agreement with the CW Network, weekend tournaments will air live on Saturdays and Sundays on both TV and on the app, while coverage on Friday will be available only through the app.

From an operational perspective, the LIV Golf League is pioneered by LIV Golf Investments with Greg Norman as its CEO. LIV Golf Investments is financially backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. Assets included, it is said to be worth in excess of $620 billion - which includes Newcastle United Football Club after a consortium-led purchase in 2021. 

The chairman of the Public Investment Fund is Mohammed bin Salman, colloquially known as MBS. He is a Saudi Arabian politician who is the crown prince, deputy prime minister, and minister of defence of Saudi Arabia. He also serves as the chairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs and chairman of the Council of Political and Security Affairs.

Yasir bin Othman Al-Rumayyan is the Governor of the PIF, serving directly under MBS. Al-Rumayyan also serves as the Chairman of Newcastle United Football Club and Chairman of state-owned petroleum company Saudi Aramco. Majed Al Sorour acts as an Advisor to the PIF as well as CEO of Golf Saudi, Saudi Golf Federation and Director of Newcastle United Football Club.

Despite the financial backing of the Public Investment Fund, Norman has insisted that he "does not answer to Saudi Arabia" and that they (including MBS) are not "his bosses." The former World No.1 described LIV Golf Investments as "independent" to the Public Investment Fund. 

As well as the financial backing of the LIV Golf League, the Public Investment Fund has invested a separate $300m with LIV Golf Investments in a 10-year deal with the Asian Tour and its International Series . This has already seen the Saudi International, which was previously sanctioned by the DP World Tour until the threat of a breakaway tour emerged, formally recognised as an Asian Tour event. 

The Public Investment Fund extended its financial backing to LIV Golf last July, with  plans to transition into a fully fledged League for the new season, with 48 players and 12 established team franchises competing in an expanded 14-tournament schedule – and an enormous $405m total prize purse.

Much of the controversy surrounding LIV Golf has stemmed from the origin of its finances, with many advocacy groups accusing players of sportswashing human rights atrocities within the Kingdom. 

Attention has also been drawn to the murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. America's Central Intelligence Agency concluded that MBS ordered the killing of Khashoggi, adding tension to the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, including calls for the US to sever diplomatic ties with the Kingdom. 

Norman also sparked outrage when he claimed that "we've all made mistakes" as he attempted to rebuff questions over Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses and the murder of Khashoggi, while former President of the United States, Donald Trump, endorsed the Saudi investment. This led to further public tension given Saudi Arabia's links with the September 11 attacks as 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in the tragedy were Saudi nationals.

Lina al-Hathloul, a Saudi democracy activist, penned an open letter to the LPGA Tour urging they re-consider their arrangement with Saudi Arabia. The letter was released during the Aramco Series, funded by the Kingdom's state-owned petroleum company, and after LPGA Tour Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan  hinted that she would engage  with the controversial circuit if it could help promote the women’s game.

The threat of a breakaway circuit put the DP World and PGA Tour on guard , with Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour Commissioner, repeatedly warning any player who sided with a rival league would face suspension. 

In a memo sent to players in May, the PGA Tour officially denied its members conflicting-event releases to play in the  LIV Golf Series  opener at the Centurion Club. The  memo stated that granting release would "significantly and unreasonably harm the PGA Tour and Tour sponsors" before affirming that "your participation in the event is not authorised under the Regulations."

Norman, who accused the PGA Tour of bullying,  has repeatedly insisted that PGA Tour players are independent contractors and that the Tour does not have the legal right to deny their entry to tournaments. 

Those that took part in the inaugural event at Centurion Club did so without the pre-requisite permission from the PGA and/or DP World Tour and were therefore met with sanction.

The PGA Tour suspended all players that took part who didn't tender their resignations first, and has promised it will continue to do so in future, whereas the DP World Tour suspended players for three co-sanctioned events and imposed a £100,000 fine. Ian Poulter responded with legal action against the DP World Tour and his suspension was "temporarily stayed". The Englishman then played in the Scottish Open, one of the tournaments he was initially suspended from.

The PGA Tour excluded all LIV Golf players from its new FedEx Cup points list, as to ensure that "suspended members do not negatively impact other players’ tournament eligibility, positioning on the priority rankings or eligibility to compete in the FedEx Cup playoffs."

In response, 11 LIV Golf players filed an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour. That number has since dropped after Carlos Ortiz, Abraham Ancer, Pat Perez and Jason Kokrak, among others, withdrew from proceedings. The motion says: "The Tour's conduct serves no purpose other than to cause harm to players and foreclose the entry of the first meaningful competitive threat the Tour has faced in decades."

Additionally, Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford issued a temporary restraining order against the PGA Tour in a bid to allow them to compete in the upcoming FedEx Cup playoffs. 

The PGA Tour responded via its attorneys and claimed "LIV is not a rational economic actor, competing fairly to start a golf tour. It is prepared to lose billions of dollars to leverage Plaintiffs [the 11 LIV Golfers raising the case] and the sport of golf to 'sportswash' the Saudi government's deplorable reputation for human rights abuses. 

"If Plaintiffs are allowed to breach their Tour contracts without consequence, the entire mutually beneficial structure of the Tour, an arrangement that has grown the sport and promoted the interests of golfers going back to Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, would collapse.

"Despite knowing full well that they would breach Tour Regulations and be suspended for doing so, Plaintiffs have joined competing golf league LIV Golf, which has paid them tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in guaranteed money supplied by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund to procure their breaches." 

Judge Freeman found there was "no irreparable harm" as "LIV contracts are based upon players' calculation of what they were leaving behind" and therefore denied the restraining order. Gooch, Jones and Swafford were therefore denied entry to the FedEx Cup playoffs. 

LIV Golf joined the antitrust motion against the PGA Tour, in which it described the organisation as "an entrenched monopolist with a vice-grip on professional golf." Judge Beth Labson Freeman has set the date for the summary judgement for July 23 next year, with the trial to begin on January 8, 2024.

The battle between LIV Golf Investments and the PGA Tour is sure to continue; especially with the future of world ranking points, Major championships and the Ryder Cup called into doubt. The 2022 Presidents Cup was the first team event to feel the effects of the tension, with LIV Golf defectors not permitted to take part.

As the divide between LIV Golf and the established eco-system appears to grow, the DP World Tour and PGA Tour entered into, and strengthened, their "strategic alliance" with the the key focus on "enhancing and connecting the ecosystem of men’s professional golf through a number of areas, including global scheduling, prize funds and playing opportunities for the respective memberships".

It was also revealed that three events will be co-sanctioned, meaning they will count towards both the FedEx Cup and Race to Dubai. These are: the Barbasol Championship, the Barracuda Championship and the Genesis Scottish Open. 

A total of 75 DP World Tour members had access to the Barbasol and Barracuda Championships for the first time, while the Irish Open was also given a major boost, with its prize purse set to nearly double to $6million for its 2022 staging. 

Most recently, on 6 February, a five-day hearing began in London to determine whether LIV Golf players could continue on the DP World Tour, with the outcome expected to be announced in the weeks to follow.

As it stands, LIV Golf does not award Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points for its events, but that's not for a lack of trying. 

The Greg-Norman fronted venture submitted a formal application to the OWGR Board, which includes PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley, ahead of the 150th Open Championship at St Andrews. 

On face value, one of the expected pushbacks was that the LIV Golf format remains at odds with certain qualifying criteria. Among others, there are no 36-hole cuts and the average field size is less than the 75 required.

The application received the support of the Asian Tour, which is of significance as all applications require a "nomination from an established full-member Tour." 

Norman himself was said to be "growing impatient" at the "slow progress" since the application was submitted and subsequently entered into a strategic alliance with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Tour in the hope it would "immediately qualify" for ranking points. That however, was denied by the OWGR board on the grounds of "insufficient notice", saying that "only after the review is complete will a decision be made on awarding points to the MENA Tour's new "Limited Field Tournaments" [the LIV Golf Invitational Series]."

That decision was met with dismay by MENA Tour Commissioner David Spencer, who reasoned LIV Golf should be granted the status, saying: "None of this communication pointed towards any technical reason for the LIV Golf Invitational Bangkok to be treated any differently to any MENA Tour event, every one of which has received OWGR since we were accepted into the OWGR framework in 2016."

Prior, 50 LIV Golf players signed a letter  addressed to OWGR chairman Peter Dawson urging a decision in LIV Golf’s favour whilst Norman questioned the validity of the OWGR without the Saudi-backed venture being able to award its players points. 

OWGR recognition is one of many subjects surrounding LIV Golf that has divided opinion. Graeme McDowell insisted LIV Golf player are "getting hurt the longer this game is played" whilst Viktor Hovland claimed "you can't just make up new rules as you go." 

Meanwhile, as the impasse continues into 2023, several key figures in the game have called for the OWGR to be scrapped, claiming it has lost any credibility , while LIV Golf players continue to slide down the world rankings , leaving their futures in Majors in jeopardy - at least as time goes on.

Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods have pledged loyalty to the PGA Tour

Despite the overwhelming amount of money on offer, many players have stated that they will remain with the PGA Tour.  Tiger Woods said: “I’ve decided for myself that I’m supporting the PGA Tour. That’s where my legacy is. I’ve been fortunate enough to have won 82 events on this Tour and 15 Major championships and been a part of the World Golf Championships, the start of them and the end of them. So I have an allegiance to the PGA Tour”.

Four-time Major champion, Rory McIlroy , also agreed, with the Northern Irishman stating that the league is "nothing more than a money grab". His European counterpart, Jon Rahm , said: "I don't do this for the money. They throw numbers at you and that's supposed to impress people. I'm in this game for the love of golf and the love of the game and to become a champion."

Jordan Spieth, who is among the most popular players after he become the youngest player since Tiger Woods to win the Masters, said he is "supportive of and happy on the PGA Tour."

Collin Morikawa confirmed his future is with the PGA Tour, while Patrick Cantlay added that the chance to pick up a huge appearance fee for playing in the Saudi International was "very tempting" but he ultimately "wasn't swayed".

Former World No.1 Scottie Scheffler is another that has publicly distanced himself from the Series. The Masters champion said that playing in the venture is "definitely not" something "we" want the PGA Tour members to do.

PGA Champion Justin Thomas has reiterated his loyalty to the PGA Tour and has told prospective players to "go". Thomas also drew on comments and actions from the Tour's Commissioner: "I think Jay's made it very clear from the start of what would happen or, you know, I think a lot of people are probably like, 'I can't believe you did this' or, 'Wow, you went through with it'. But I mean this is what he said was going to happen all along," he said.

Outside of a playing capacity, Jack Nicklaus revealed in an interview with the Fire Pit Collective that he turned down "in excess of $100m" from the Saudis to do a job he described as "probably similar to the one Greg Norman is doing." Nicklaus said: “I turned it down. Once verbally, once in writing. I said, 'Guys, I have to stay with the PGA Tour. I helped start the PGA Tour.’”

So, what's next? Well, if it's anything like the last few months, who knows?

What we do know is that the speculation is over and there is a Saudi-backed league muscling its way to the top of the game's eco-system - one that is holding events with extended plans into the future and plenty of financial backing.

The PGA Tour has responded with heavy sanctions and suspended those that have taken part. It has also promised suspend anyone that takes part in future; which will almost certainly be met with legal challenge.

The DP World Tour responded in a less severe manner when it suspended for the three events it co-sanctions with the PGA Tour. It also added a £100,000 financial penalty. A legal challenge temporarily resulted in the players favour but a full hearing is set to take place in February 2023. 

Between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf Investments, one party insists that it is lawful in denying releases as per its regulations, whilst the other insists it is not lawful as the players are independent contractors with the legal right to play where they wish. Both believe they are right and both seem to have a legal basis; but of course, there can only be one 'winner'. 

Reports had suggested the Major championships will look to ban LIV Golf players, although so far there is encouragement for the rebels, with the R&A, which governs the Open Championship, stating that "is not in their nature" and Augusta National allowing LIV Golf players to compete in the 2023 Masters .

While the Ryder Cup is yet to make an official statement, United States captain Zach Johnson dealt a blow to the LIV Golf players looking to take part. "In order to play on the Ryder Cup team whether you're top 6 or a pick, you must garner Ryder Cup points through the PGA of America. In order to garner Ryder Cup points through the PGA of America you have to be a member of the PGA of America. The way that we're members of the PGA of America is through the PGA Tour. I'll let you connect the dots from there." 

On the opposite side of the Atlantic, Team Europe captain Luke Donald has also hinted that LIV Golf stars' Ryder Cup days are over .

We are still very much at the beginning but with the second season upon us, we have a small glimpse into the future of professional golf and can begin to ask ourselves the question - does LIV Golf compliment the current ecosystem that will ultimately satisfy the needs of both the player and spectator, or is this the beginning of an out-and-out rivalry with the intent to knock the PGA Tour off its perch? Time will tell.

Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories. 

He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game. 

Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course. 

Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.

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How big of a win for MBS is the Saudi-PGA golf deal, actually?

The Saudi play for American golf, explained.

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The golf course is perhaps not the arena that immediately comes to mind when you’re thinking about geopolitics. But with one proposed golf business deal, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, just hit the geopolitical equivalent of a hole-in-one.

The surprise announcement this week that Saudi-backed LIV Golf would merge with the preeminent American PGA Tour under a new parent company means MBS has gained a powerful hand over American and international golf.

LIV Golf is a newish enterprise launched by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which is essentially the half-trillion-dollar piggy bank of the crown prince. Since launching in 2022, the tour used its massive budget to attract top talent away from the PGA Tour, even as human rights advocates, activists, and some players emphasized LIV’s connections to MBS and his brutal reign . LIV golfers sued the PGA Tour on the grounds that it is allegedly engaging in monopolistic behavior by barring its players from participating in LIV.

Many golfers were against the Saudi-backed entry into the sport. Tiger Woods declined some $700 million to join LIV. But others, with a dose of reluctance, took part. Golfer Phil Mickelson nabbed $200 million to participate in LIV, though even he conceded , “We know they killed [journalist Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights.” Other big players jumped on board too, but not without controversy and some anger. As recently as last month, onlookers in New York booed LIV golfers.

Then, on June 6, the PGA Tour announced that it was banding together with LIV and a Dubai-based European tour to establish a “new, collectively owned, for-profit entity.” Players took to Twitter to express their surprise at the deal, and even staffers at the PGA Tour were blindsided. Right now, the deal is just a “framework”; it will need to be finalized and approved by the PGA Tour’s policy board, and could face regulatory scrutiny .

But it’s already a dramatic development that could reshape the sport’s international landscape. Even more than that, it’s another sign of Saudi Arabia’s persistent and far-reaching strategy — across industries from Silicon Valley to Hollywood — to grow global influence. MBS is generating more and more wins.

“This is much, much bigger than golf,” says Khalid Al-Jabri, a Saudi entrepreneur and physician based in Washington, DC.

Details on the deal are still thin , and the memorandum between Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and the leagues is not public. Al-Jabri disputes whether this is best described as a merger. He calls it a “sadistic takeover” and emphasizes that this is going to be the model for how MBS will continue to make inroads in American affairs, whether through Big Tech or video gaming or sports, and sanitize the reputation of Saudi Arabia in the process.

“If you can’t join them, bully them until they allow you to come in,” Al-Jabri told me. “This is not about golf. This is about influence. And MBS got what he wanted.”

The Saudi play for American golf

If you want to buy influence, buy golf. That’s in essence what the blue-chip consulting firm McKinsey told the Saudi sovereign wealth fund when it provided it with a blueprint for “a high-risk high-reward endeavor” in 2021.

It was codenamed Project Wedge , and sought to boost Saudi Arabia’s global reputation, particularly after the 2018 killing of Khashoggi, MBS’s war in Yemen, and the blackmailing of Saudi royals at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh . The idea recalls the sportwashing of undemocratic regimes, as has been seen with the Olympics in Beijing or the World Cup in Qatar .

Later that year, LIV Golf launched with billions of dollars of Saudi backing. Money was hard to ignore. “LIV, financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, distributed $255 million in prize money in 2022, including $30 million in bonuses. In all, 52 golfers earned more than $1 million,” according to Golfweek .

It caused a major rift within the sport. The PGA Tour’s European partner, the DP World Tour, suspended and fined golfers who went over to LIV. In the US, LIV sued the PGA Tour for choking competition. The litigation has been costly and dramatic, and the PGA Tour lacks the cash reserves of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. The PIF also hired the powerhouse global consultancy Teneo, “to disrupt professional golf and compete with the Tour via LIV,” according to the PGA Tour’s motion .

The US Justice Department is investigating the PGA Tour on possible antitrust violations, as news reports indicated last summer.

Throughout, golfers expressed outrage about the meaning of Saudi Arabia moving onto the course, but those who signed up for LIV suddenly became rather reserved. “These golfers are very opinionated. They’ve always been opinionated. They’ve been shy about sharing their opinions. Now, if you look at the people who have signed deals with LIV, all of a sudden, they have no opinions whatsoever,” a PGA Tour representative, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told me earlier this year. “They’re prohibited from disparaging any investor, which in this case actually means the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

The PGA Tour spent the last year and a half focused on incompatibilities between the two tours, with an emphasis that LIV is not serious golf. Yet the announcement of what appears to be a merger this week has given MBS a seat at the table.

“There was a price at which PGA Tour was willing to sell itself to Saudi Arabia,” says Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, the group founded by the slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The Saudi Public Investment Fund will provide “a capital investment into the new entity to facilitate its growth and success,” according to a press release, and that could mean billions . “This new entity (name TBD) will also include the PGA TOUR’s commercial businesses and rights, as well as those of the DP World Tour,” the statement continues. The lawsuits between the two will reportedly stop, but generally the details remain murky.

Each tour would reportedly still be responsible for running its own operations .

MBS, it might be said, is smart to focus on sportswashing. “The only question is whether the American people and their elected officials want to be influenced and controlled by a murderous dictator,” Whitson told me.

This is much bigger than golf. This is about influence.

After the assassination and disappearance of Washington Post columnist Khashoggi in 2018, MBS became a liability. On the campaign trail, candidate Joe Biden pledged to make him a “ pariah .”

But now, the Biden administration has warmed to Saudi Arabia, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken was even visiting MBS in the Saudi capital this week in a sign of where things stand. In a statement, the secretary “emphasized that our bilateral relationship is strengthened by progress on human rights,” suggesting that the two countries had turned a corner.

MBS has slowly and steadily been welcomed back to the business world, too. That has been due in large part to his financial largesse and how the Public Investment Fund has funneled billions of dollars into Silicon Valley . Those investments are now openly celebrated by tech leaders (though when I reached out to dozens of American investment funds and startups, none of them wanted to talk about it).

PIF’s venture arm, Sanabil, is putting $2 billion a year into products we consume and tech we benefit from. It has direct investments in Bird scooters and AI startups Vectra and Atomwise. Plus, there’s indirect money going through other venture funds into companies including Credit Karma, GitLab , Reddit, and Postmates , as well as the popular running shoe brand On or the military-tech darling and Pentagon contractor Anduril .

Among the previously undisclosed firms that had received Saudi funds: Andreessen Horowitz, whose portfolio companies include Instacart and SpaceX .

And then there are the forays into WWE , horse racing , soccer , and Formula 1 . There have been investments in Hollywood and film , in media , and in the arts .

Saudi dollars have become so ubiquitous that footballer Lionel Messi going to Miami over Saudi Arabia seemed to be a rare exception .

One thing to add is that former President Donald Trump , who owns a global network of golf courses, stands to benefit . He has hosted LIV events at his resorts, and the chairman of the Public Investment Fund was spotted golfing with him last year in a MAGA hat.

“We have to see Saudi Arabia’s investment in golf as a very deliberate strategy to expand their influence and control over America’s political, economic, and cultural institutions,” Whitson told me. “Money won this round.”

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THE MOST UNLIKELY union in professional golf history -- the PGA Tour's stunning partnership last week with the DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund -- started with a WhatsApp message. The fact the sender was James Dunne III, a Wall Street dealmaker, makes the alliance even more improbable.

Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, with about $620 billion in assets, is financing the rival LIV Golf League, which has traded blows with the PGA Tour during a bitter two-year battle to topple each other for supremacy in the sport. As the game's best players gather this week at Los Angeles Country Club for the 123rd U.S. Open, the fractured sport seems closer than ever to reuniting.

Dunne, an independent director on the PGA Tour's policy board, was one of the founders of Sandler O'Neill and Partners, an investment banking firm that lost 40% of its employees when hijackers crashed a plane into the south tower of the World Trade Center in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. All but four of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudi citizens, and the Saudi kingdom was the birthplace of Osama bin Laden, the head of al-Qaeda and mastermind of the attack.

Dunne would have been in the south tower that day if he hadn't been on the back nine of his Wall Street career. Instead of going to work, Dunne was trying to qualify for the U.S. Mid-Amateur at Bedford Golf and Tennis Club, about 40 miles north of Manhattan. A golfer with an impressive 1 handicap at the time, Dunne was 1 under after four holes when a United States Golf Association official told him he needed to call his office because a plane had crashed into the twin towers. Dunne watched the skyscrapers collapse on TV in the club's pro shop.

Of the 171 Sandler O'Neill employees who worked on the 104th floor of the south tower, 66 died that morning, including two of Dunne's partners: his best friend, Chris Quackenbush, and his mentor, Herman Sandler.

Quackenbush, who Dunne had known since they were teenagers growing up on Long Island, had encouraged him to play in the U.S. Mid-Amateur qualifier at Bedford Golf and Tennis Club instead of one the day before in Greenwich, Connecticut, because the course better suited his game.

Dunne put his head down and rebuilt Sandler O'Neill. The firm had built its foundation on mergers and acquisitions involving small and medium-sized banks, but its deals kept getting bigger and bigger. Dunne was an adviser on TD Ameritrade's merger with Charles Schwab and dozens of other billion-dollar acquisitions. Sandler O'Neill and Partners grew into the largest investment banking firm focused on the financial services sector. The company was acquired by Wall Street investment bank Piper Jaffray in 2020. CNBC reported the merger was worth about $485 million.

Dunne is president of Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Florida, home of the most famous pro-member tournament in the sport (LIV Golf players weren't invited this year). He's a member of several clubs, including Augusta National Golf Club and Shinnecock Hills in Southampton, New York, where he set the course record with a 63 in 2010 ( Tommy Fleetwood tied the mark in the final round of the 2018 U.S. Open). He is a close friend of PGA Tour stars Rory McIlroy , Rickie Fowler and others. When Dunne qualified for his first USGA event, the 2018 U.S. Senior Amateur Championship, Justin Thomas sent out a congratulatory tweet. Former NFL quarterback Tom Brady considers Dunne one of his most important mentors.

"When you've been around people a long time, you see the 360," Brady told Sports Illustrated in 2021. "Jimmy is an amazing leader, a great dad, a great husband ... honest as the day is long. You don't do amazing things by taking three knees and punting, hoping someone else makes a decision for you."

Even before joining the PGA Tour's policy board Jan. 1, 2023, Dunne had been working behind the scenes, talking to players and agents, in hopes of repairing the fractured sport, which had splintered like never before when two-time Open Championship winner Greg Norman launched the Saudi-funded LIV Golf League and poached many of the PGA Tour's biggest stars with guaranteed contracts reportedly worth as much as $200 million.

With the Public Investment Fund (PIF) investing more than $2 billion into the breakaway circuit in its inaugural season in 2022, Norman was able to lure past major champions Dustin Johnson , Phil Mickelson , Brooks Koepka , Bryson DeChambeau and others away from the PGA Tour. Commissioner Jay Monahan suspended more than 30 players for competing in LIV Golf tournaments without conflicting event releases.

In August, 11 players filed an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour in federal court, alleging it was using its monopoly power to quash competition. The PGA Tour countersued, accusing LIV Golf of interfering with its contracts with players. It was a full-blown golf civil war.

Enter Dunne, who is known as Jimmy to his colleagues and friends. His Wall Street pedigree in bringing sides together and making deals work made him a likely mediator to cool tensions between the sides. But he would have to put aside his personal feelings about 9/11 and Saudi Arabia's role in the terrorist attacks.

Once Dunne joined the PGA Tour's policy board, he wanted to reach out directly to not Norman but Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the sovereign wealth fund. After an arbitration panel in London ruled April 5 that the DP World Tour could impose sanctions on its members for competing in LIV Golf events, Monahan gave Dunne permission to contact Al-Rumayyan.

"What I always felt is that I didn't understand what the LIV Tour was really trying to accomplish," Dunne told ESPN. "And so at some point in time, between the legal expense and them basically recruiting our players, I thought it was important that we would speak to the main guy and not to anybody else. Over time, and after we had gotten some good legal victories, I was able to convince Jay that we should go over and try to find out if there is a middle ground here. Is there something we can do so that we can put the legal battle and the whole sort of conflict behind us?"

On the morning of April 18, Dunne sent Al-Rumayyan a message on WhatsApp. Al-Rumayyan responded a few minutes later. They spoke on the telephone for a while that day and agreed to meet in person in London later that month. It was the beginning of one of the most complicated deals in Dunne's career.

IN LATE APRIL, Dunne met Al-Rumayyan at a hotel outside London. They had dinner and smoked cigars together that night.

"He was approachable," Dunne said. "We spoke about golf, his career and his view of what he wanted to grow in the game of golf. My impression was that we can work together. He really loves the game of golf. He's very thoughtful and very calm, and I found him to be extremely decent."

The next day, Al-Rumayyan, a 12 handicap, and PGA Tour policy board co-chairman Ed Herlihy beat Dunne, a 5 handicap, and PIF attorney Brian Gillespie in a round of golf at Beaverbrook Golf Club in Surrey, England.

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and 9/11 Families United, heavily criticized the PGA Tour's decision to do business with the Saudis in statements Tuesday .

Dunne raised eyebrows last week when he told the Golf Channel that he is convinced the Saudis he dealt with weren't involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "I am quite certain -- and I have had conversations with a lot of very knowledgeable people -- that the people I'm dealing with had nothing to do with it," he said. "If someone can find someone who unequivocally was involved with it, I'll kill them myself."

Dunne returned to the U.S. and told Monahan he believed there was a chance they could come to some sort of compromise with the Saudis. Monahan told reporters last week that Dunne and Herlihy's early conversations with Al-Rumayyan and other PIF officials got the ball rolling in negotiations.

"The first conversation that I was not a part of was what was the most important conversation because of the position I've been in and what we've been trying to do with our tour," Monahan said. "But when they came back and said it was a positive conversation and that I should have a follow-up meeting, I think that's when things started to develop."

In May, Dunne, Herlihy and Monahan flew to Venice, Italy, where Al-Rumayyan was attending a wedding. Monahan spent time with Al-Rumayyan the night they arrived, and the entire group met for several hours the next day, hammering out the framework of what a potential alliance might look like.

On May 28, the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, the men met again in San Francisco, where they finalized a formal plan. The next day, Monahan and Al-Rumayyan signed a two-page framework agreement for a partnership that would stun the golf world.

"I think there was a desire for both sides to come together to some kind of peace," Dunne said. "It was extremely complex and difficult, but people really wanted, in my mind, to do something that was going to be good for the game of golf."

ACCORDING TO DUNNE, Monahan will oversee the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf League under the agreement. At the end of LIV Golf's season in November, Monahan will evaluate whether the team-focused circuit of 54 holes, shotgun starts and no cuts will continue or fold. Dunne said it will be Monahan's decision alone.

It's unclear what Norman's role will be going forward, although he told staff last week that his circuit is a stand-alone entity and is making plans for 2024 and beyond. A LIV Golf spokesperson said Norman wasn't available for comment.

"In the end, it's really one person that will decide, and the PGA Tour will never fund any aspect of LIV," Dunne said.

According to Dunne, the PGA Tour will also control the new yet-to-be-named for-profit entity, which "combines PIF's golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf) with the commercial business and rights of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour," according to the release.

Monahan will serve as the new company's CEO; Al-Rumayyan will be chairman. Dunne said the entity will consider future "strategic opportunities and evaluate if they'd be useful for the PGA Tour." It might be the purchase of a golf course, another tour or a media network. PIF will be the initial investor and will have the exclusive right to further inject more money into the company.

"The PGA Tour is the controlling partner of the new company," Dunne said. "It is extraordinarily unlikely that [Al-Rumayyan's] going to be involved in the day-to-day. No, he would not be involved in day-to-day. But if we were going to look for a strategic opportunity, we would obviously involve him and he'd help evaluate it and decide whether or not it would be worth them investing in it. It could be very possible that we could go a long period of time before there's any investment of any type."

The Saudis will be a bank for the new entity, according to Dunne, but only if money is needed. Dunne doesn't know how much the Saudis are willing to invest; Al-Rumayyan told CNBC he is prepared to spend "whatever it takes ... that's what we're committed for."

Dunne said PIF will invest in the new company, but not in the PGA Tour and won't pay its members. The PGA Tour will remain a 501(c)(6) tax-exempt organization and retain its own operations, including scheduling, sanctioning of events, rules and competition.

What will the Saudis get out of the deal? They'll make money if the new for-profit venture grows, and they'll get a seat at the table in the new global golf ecosystem. Dunne said Aramco, Saudi Arabia's public petroleum and natural gas company, could become a PGA Tour sponsor. Al-Rumayyan will join the PGA Tour policy board. As one person familiar with Al-Rumayyan told ESPN, "He wants to be standing under the tree at Augusta National on Thursday at the Masters."

ON JUNE 5, officials from the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF gathered at investment banker Michael Klein's office in New York to piece together a strategy in announcing the partnership. A news release was written and a media strategy was developed. Monahan and Al-Rumayyan would announce the deal together on CNBC the next morning, minutes after PGA Tour and DP World Tour players would be notified of the alliance in memos.

Dunne texted McIlroy, one of the PGA Tour's most loyal supporters, on Monday night, asking if they could talk the next morning. Dunne called McIlroy at 6:15 a.m. ET Tuesday to tell him the news.

"He seemed pleased that there would be peace coming," Dunne said. "He was pleased that there was the potential for peace. He was aware that there had been some contact back and forth, but had no knowledge, intentionally on both parties, where dialogue was."

McIlroy said Dunne told him, "Rory, sometimes you got 280 over water, you just got to go for it."

"I still hate LIV," McIlroy said. "Like, I hate LIV. I hope it goes away, and I would fully expect that it does. I think that's where the distinction here is. This is the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the PIF -- very different from LIV."

Players have criticized Monahan and DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley for keeping them in the dark about perhaps the most important decision in the circuit's history. Dunne said confidentiality was paramount in such a controversial deal.

"We wanted to treat all the players equally because a deal like this has so much emotion in it," Dunne said. "I didn't want to be in the situation where we told some players and not others. If you told 20 or 30, you would have no confidentiality. People had their own particular interests, could do what they would want to do, [and] some might try to derail the deal. What we tried to do is get what we thought was a very good deal for the PGA Tour and then present that to the players."

Shortly after the agreement was announced, Monahan flew to Toronto, the site of last week's RBC Canadian Open. He met with more than 100 players for longer than an hour. Monahan described the meeting as "tense," and a few players called for his resignation.

"The reason why there was so much backlash during the meeting was we were just all kind of in a state of shock," said longtime PGA Tour member Brandt Snedeker . "Nobody knew it was coming. I think inevitably with these kinds of deals, you never know they're coming, otherwise, they'd never get done."

Australia's Geoff Ogilvy said Monahan only provided players with "broad strokes" and few details because the plan hadn't been formally approved. Ogilvy said he was a "little bit grumpy" with Monahan, but "generally felt for him because he clearly can't tell us anything."

"He said, 'Hang in there. This is actually a good deal,'" Ogilvy said.

There was a heated exchange during the meeting between McIlroy and Grayson Murray , the 232nd-ranked player in the world, who shouted for Monahan to resign, saying, "We don't trust you, Jay. You lied to our face."

Two days after the meeting, Murray told ESPN that he hadn't changed his mind about Monahan.

"What I said in the meeting about [how] I hope he resigns and the people underneath him [resign], I stand by that," Murray said. "I haven't talked to Jay. I've known Jay for a long time, and I think this whole thing just has been handled the wrong way. I think we just need a new face.

"I think there are some things going on internally that we don't know about, and I don't think they'll ever come out, which just seems fishy. It's all happening so quickly without the players' knowledge. It's something so important, like the biggest thing that's ever happened to our tour, and we find out the morning it comes out."

Murray said others in the room were upset about the PGA Tour's lack of transparency. Players don't have the power to force Monahan out. Only the policy board can make that decision, and Dunne and Herlihy helped him broker the deal with the Saudis.

The full policy board, which consists of three other independent directors, five players ( Patrick Cantlay , Charley Hoffman , Peter Malnati , McIlroy and Webb Simpson ) and PGA of America director John Lindert, must still formally approve the alliance. Al-Rumayyan told CNBC that the deal should be approved in the coming weeks.

"I think some people agree with me, definitely," Murray said. "But you know, there's no way to get on the board and say, 'Hey, you're fired.' We don't have that power. That's why I think a union would be great for our sport. I don't know why we haven't come together with that. I think any other sport that has a union is doing great. They have power. They make decisions. It's a players' tour. At least they keep saying it's a players' tour."

Former world No. 1 golfer Justin Rose , an 11-time winner on the PGA Tour, said Monahan has a "hung jury" or "split camp" among his membership.

"I think some players maybe understand the pressure that he was under, and maybe the business side of things where some things just have to transpire the way they transpire," Rose said. "But, you know, other guys are not willing to accept the way it went down. It's a little muddy right now for sure."

Lucas Glover , the 2009 U.S. Open winner, said many PGA Tour players "want a pound of flesh right now."

"I think [Monahan's support] is probably pretty minimal right now because of just the reaction and it just hasn't played out yet," Glover said. "On its own head, it looks pretty awful. But I think a lot of people cooled off after the meeting and got some questions answered. I think the end result needs to be beneficial to the guys that stuck around, and that will go a long way to earn back trust."

One of the biggest concerns among most players, according to Ogilvy and Snedeker, is that LIV Golf League players won't be allowed to simply rejoin the PGA Tour. Dunne said a committee of players and administrators will decide on potential punishment for players who left and want to rejoin. He said golfers who left also won't be allowed to participate in a planned equity sharing in the new entity.

"I think you'd get a pretty strong consensus amongst the players that nobody really wants any of these guys to come back who went to LIV," Ogilvy said. "They would feel a bit cheated because we all chose the tour. Those who stayed, we chose the tour and were told that this is the right side to be on. 'Don't do this. You'll never come back. If you go, you'll never be able to come back.' That's the one thing I think that really was triggering all the boys is these guys, they've gone off and got their piles of money."

Snedeker said some LIV Golf players might have a more difficult time being accepted back than others.

"Most of those guys left on relatively good terms," Snedeker said. "I think there'll be some animosity towards the guys that sued us and drug us through the mud and tried to tell us how bad this tour is and how awful it is. I think there'll be some animosity towards them. But the majority of those guys just made a financial decision, business decision, so I don't think there'll be a ton of that."

ALONG WITH EARNING back some of his players' trust, Monahan has to get the deal across the finish line. That won't be easy, according to legal experts. The agreement might have ended all legal disputes between the PGA Tour and PIF, but the U.S. Department of Justice was already investigating the PGA Tour's alleged antitrust behavior. Federal regulators will undoubtedly scrutinize the new company as well, according to antitrust experts. The 1914 Clayton Act prohibits mergers and acquisitions that eliminate competition.

Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School and former special assistant to President Joe Biden for technology and competition policy, said there is a "100% chance" DOJ enforcers take a close look at the new alliance. Wu said regulators in Europe also might take a hard look.

"If PIF had just invested in PGA when they were a monopoly, that would be a totally different story," Wu said. "The challenge here, and this could be any industry, is if you have a monopolist and you have a startup, some kind of competitor to it. [The startup] starts to get some traction, or not. Then you decide to just like, 'Hey, let's agree not to compete and share the profits.' That's what the antitrust law bans you from doing."

The agreement hasn't been finalized and paperwork hasn't been submitted to the federal government. The deal could be restructured, or PIF and the PGA Tour could simply try to ram it through. When ESPN asked Dunne if the new company would pass the antitrust test, he said, "I'm not a lawyer."

Wu noted that the Department of Justice recently blocked an announced merger between American Airlines and JetBlue Airways. Last month, a federal judge upheld the ruling and ordered the airlines to separate.

"They tried to say it wasn't a merger," Wu said. "The airlines said, 'Well, it's not a merger. We're just an alliance and combining.' But the Justice Department said, 'Look, if you stop competing on prices and stop competing for customers, you're no longer competing, and that's what we care about.' So, the Justice Department cares whether you're agreeing not to compete, whatever laws you want to put on it. That's what they care about."

Northwestern law professor Gerald Maatman, one of the country's leading antitrust lawyers, said PIF's lawyers will have a difficult time walking back their previous comments about the PGA Tour being a monopoly and using its power to quash competition.

"In essence, it's like, 'Forget about all the allegations we made in our lawsuit. We didn't mean it,'" Maatman said. "From a legal standpoint, it's very hard to unring the bell when you make those allegations. They're called judicial admissions by the law. Truth is not a weathervane that turns when the wind blows towards your self-interest. And when you say something in court, it's kind of hard to weasel out of it down the road."

Monahan will also have to clarify his comment to reporters last week that the deal was "ultimately, to take the competitor off of the board -- to have them exist as a partner, not an owner -- and for us to be able to control the direction going forward."

"That's surprising he would say this, that one of the benefits of the deal is eliminating competition," said Craig Seebald, a partner and antitrust expert at Vinson & Elkins law firm. "This is just the heart of it. I probably talked to 30 or 40 antitrust lawyers, and everybody's just scratching their heads saying, 'Why would you say that?' I mean, that'd be the last thing you'd want your client to say."

Several U.S. politicians, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, have expressed concerns about the proposed alliance and said they'll be watching its structure closely. In a statement to Time, Warren said the PGA was "selling out to the Saudi regime to draw attention from its atrocious human rights record with a new golf monopoly."

Blumenthal said in a statement, "The PGA Tour has spent two years lambasting Saudi sports-washing and paying lip service [to] the integrity of the sport of golf, which will now be used unabashedly by the Kingdom to distract from its many crimes. The PGA Tour has placed a price on human rights and betrayed the long history of sports and athletes that advocate for social change and progress. I will keep a close eye on the structure of this deal and its implications."

It could be months before the alliance between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF is finalized, if it's approved at all -- passed by the policy board, signed off on by lawmakers, cleared by the DOJ and of course, if the terms are as described. There's also the possibility of the Saudis making the biggest leverage play of all: a Trojan horse and leaving the PGA Tour and DP World Tour alone at the altar.

"I'm choosing the bullish side of this thing," Ogilvy said. "If it is how it could be, it could be incredible. I feel like [PIF is] in it for the long haul. I mean, if they hang around with their checkbook, it future-proofs it a little bit. This arms race of how much money can we pay all these players, the PGA Tour was going to lose eventually. So, to come together, however that looks in the end surely is better than bickering about it and pulling half the good players over there and half the good players over there.

"Nobody wins when that happens."

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The LIV Golf series: What we know, what we don’t, and the massive ramifications of the Saudi-backed league

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The threat of a competing Saudi Arabia-backed professional golf league has floated like a storm on the game’s horizon for the better part of two years. That storm is no longer on the distance but at the sport’s doorstep, as LIV Golf announced 42 players will compete in its inaugural event beginning June 9 in London. With the fledgling league beginning in earnest, it’s time to catch up on what has transpired thus far, what we know and what we don’t, and the ramifications of a possible fissure in professional golf.

When did this begin?

The idea of a breakaway circuit from the PGA Tour is far from a novel idea; the PGA Tour itself came to pass after players split from the PGA of America in 1967 to form the Tournament Players Division. More recently, former World No. 1 Greg Norman and media tycoon Rupert Murdoch attempted to create a “ World Golf Tour ” in the mid-1990s featuring the top players competing in an eight-event series. A television contract with Murdoch’s Fox Sports was even secured. But the endeavor was squashed as then-PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem flexed both the tour’s legal chops and standing in the game. Other iterations of a world tour have come and gone without much fanfare.

However, the current framework began to arise in earnest in the fall of 2019, to the point that current PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan issued a warning in January 2020 that any player who sided with a rival league would face suspension and possibly a lifetime ban. In spite of Monahan's threat, multiple players are reportedly weighing offers to join a fledgling league.

Who is challenging the PGA Tour?

Technically, there are two entities trying to rival the tour: the Premier Golf League and a Saudi-backed golf tour. The PGL was the first of the groups to coalesce in 2020, backed at the time by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. However, the PIF—the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, which, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, has $580 billion in assets—eventually backed another entity in the newly formed LIV Golf Investments. LIV Golf aspired to have its own global professional tour, often referred to as the “Super Golf League.” The PGL attempted to achieve a partnership with the European Tour but failed, with the Euro Tour eventually agreeing to a “strategic alliance” with the PGA Tour . Though the PGL concept still exists, and officials behind the venture reportedly have reached out to the PGA Tour about forming a partnership, its prospects have faded with the emergence of LIV Golf.

Why is the LIV Golf league controversial?

The PIF is essentially the financial arm of the Saudi Arabia government, which has been accused of numerous human-rights violations. To improve its reputation, especially to the Western world, Saudi Arabia has heavily invested in various athletic organizations and events, a practice often referred to as “sportswashing.” This exercise, particularly when used by state-run groups, is considered a form of propaganda to distract the public from its abuses. The most famous example of sportswashing is when Nazi Germany hosted the 1936 Summer Olympics.

Saudi Arabia has recently hosted motorsports, soccer, boxing, tennis and wrestling spectacles. In October 2021, the PIF purchased an 80-percent stake in Newcastle United, a Premier League soccer club. Since 2019, the country has hosted the Saudi International, an event formerly sanctioned by the European Tour that has drawn some of the top names in golf, who are paid considerable appearance fees.

What do we know about LIV Golf?

Founded in 2021, LIV Golf named the aforementioned Norman as its CEO in October, followed by a number of former executives from the PGA Tour and other sports affiliations. In February 2022, LIV Golf announced a $300 million, 10-year investment in the Asian Tour at the Saudi International (which now falls under the Asian Tour umbrella and is sponsored by PIF) that included a 10-event international series that will host tournaments in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Luke Walker/WME IMG

On March 15, LIV Golf announced an eight-tournament, $255 million series—called the LIV Golf Invitational—that will kick off at the Centurion Club outside of London the week before the U.S. Open starting June 9. Each event will be a three-round, 54-hole competition with no cuts. There will also be shotgun starts in order to fit the events in a shorter time window, along with a team component, with 48 players divided between 12 squads. Five of the events will be held in the United States. Those sites are Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Portland (July 1-3), Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. (July 29-31), the International in Boston (Sept. 2-4), Rich Harvest Farms in Chicago (Sept. 16-18) and Trump Doral (Oct. 29-31). Other hosts include Stonehill Golf Club in Bangkok and Royal Greens Golf Club in Jeddah.

The first seven events will each boast $25 million purses, $20 million for individual prizes and another $5 million for the team competition. The eighth event will offer $30 million for the top three players of the season, with another $50 million for teams in total prize funds.

On Tuesday, May 31, LIV Golf announced the players who signed up for the opener in London, an event that is headlined by Dustin Johnson. The two-time major winner was previously linked to the fledgling circuit, although Johnson came out with a statement in February pledging loyalty to the PGA Tour. But Johnson's agent, David Winkle, released a statement to various outlets Tuesday saying Johnson continued to weigh the offer. "Dustin’s been contemplating this for the past two years and decided it was in his and his family’s best interest to pursue it," Winkle said. "He’s never had any issue with the PGA Tour and is grateful for all it’s given him but in the end felt this was too compelling to pass up.”

Phil Mickelson has also jumped to LIV Golf and will play in the London event, ending the 51-year-old’s three-month sabbatical from golf. The news is not necessarily surprising; Mickelson has been among the most prominent names connected to the LIV Golf operations and he noted in a February interview with Golf Digest that the PGA Tour's “obnoxious greed” had him looking elsewhere to play professionally. Moreover, Mickelson’s agent, Steve Loy, acknowledged in April that Mickelson had requested a release from the PGA Tour to play in LIV Golf's inaugural competition at the Centurion Club.

Other notable names in the field include Louis Oosthuizen, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Talor Gooch, Martin Kaymer, Kevin Na and Ian Poulter. All told, four players in the top 50 are among the participants—Johnson (13), Oosthuizen (20), Na (33) and Gooch (35)—and 16 of the top 100.

Additionally, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed will reportedly join the series when it comes to the United States. Despite DeChambeau denying rumors multiple times, his agent confirmed on June 8 that DeChambeau is leaving the tour. "Bryson has always been an innovator,” agent Brett Falkoff wrote to multiple outlets. “Having the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of something unique has always been intriguing to him. Professional golf as we know it is changing and it’s happening quickly.”

It’s very possible that a number of players will jump to LIV Golf later this summer or next season. Some could be waiting until after the U.S. Open to defect, while others are watching for the tour’s response before making their decision. Among those players linked to LIV Golf that are not in the London event include Jason Kokrak (who is sponsored by Saudi Golf) and Adam Scott (who has expressed interest in the limited schedule). Rickie Fowler has also telegraphed interest in the LIV Golf concept.

As of writing, here are those scheduled to appear at the London opener: Oliver Bekker, Richard Bland, Laurie Canter, TK Chantananuwat, Hennie Du Plessis, Oliver Fisher, Sergio Garcia, Talor Gooch, Branden Grace, Justin Harding, Sam Horsfield, Dustin Johnson, Matt Jones, Sadom Kaewkanjana, Martin Kaymer, Phachara Khongwatmai, Sihwan Kim, Ryosuke Kinoshita, Chase Koepka, Jinichiro Kozuma, Pablo Larrazabal, Graeme McDowell, Jediah Morgan, Kevin Na, Shaun Norris, Andy Ogletree, Louis Oosthuizen, Wade Ormsby, Adrian Otaegui, Turk Pettit, James Piot, Ian Poulter, David Puig, JC Ritchie, Charles Schwartzel, Hudson Swafford, Hideto Tanihara, Peter Uihlein, Scott Vincent, Lee Westwood, Bernd Wiesberger, Blake Windred.

Jared C. Tilton

What don’t we know about LIV Golf?

No broadcast partner has been announced, although more than a few eyebrows were raised when former FOX Sports President David Hill was signed by LIV Golf; mentioned above, Murdoch’s FOX Sports was originally aligned with Norman’s WGT in the mid-1990s. It appears the first event will be made available on YouTube and Facebook.

Also unclear is the role of sponsors, be it with the league or players. For example the Royal Bank of Canada stripped its logo from its staff members who played in the Saudi International, and RBC appeared to cut ties with Johnson following Tuesday’s announcement.

What players have said they don't want to be involved with LIV Golf?

Rory McIlroy has been LIV Golf’s most outspoken critic, stating he’s not comfortable with where the money is coming from. McIlroy reiterated his stance at the 2022 Genesis Invitational to Golf Digest. “Look, I’ve lived it—for the top guys, all that money really isn’t going to change their life,” McIlroy told Golf Digest’s Dan Rapaport. “I’m in a way better financial position than I was a decade ago and my life is no different. I still use the same three, four rooms in my house. I just don’t see the value in tarnishing a reputation for extra millions.”

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth and Brooks Koepka have also said they will not defect to the SGL. Following Mickelson’s comments, Xander Schauffele committed to the tour as well. Perhaps most importantly, Tiger Woods pledged his loyalty to the PGA Tour at the end of 2021.

“I’ve decided for myself that I’m supporting the PGA Tour. That’s where my legacy is,” Woods said in November 2021. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have won 82 events on this tour and 15 major championships, and been a part of the World Golf Championships, the start of them and the end of them. So I have allegiance to the PGA Tour.”

What has been the response from the PGA Tour?

Some observers believe the tour’s recent purse and FedEx Cup prize money increases are a direct response to the SGL threat; however, when the tour’s new media rights deal was announced in the beginning of 2020 (a nine-year agreement believed to be valued at $7 billion), Monahan promised the money would “put us in a position to significantly increase player earnings.” In that same breath, the tour enacted a Player Impact Program in 2021 , an initiative aimed at compensating the game’s most popular names separate from how they perform on the course. Last year, $40 million was allocated for the top 10 players on the tour’s PIP standings, with $50 million assigned for 2022. The tour will also award a $50,000 bonus for any player who reaches 15 starts during the 2021-22 season.

As for the idea that players may be excommunicated from the tour if they join the SGL, Monahan remains steadfast in his declaration from January 2020: them or us. Per Monahan’s ultimatum from 2020: “If the Team Golf Concept [one of the other names used by the PGL] or another iteration of this structure becomes a reality in 2022 or at any time before or after, our members will have to decide whether they want to continue to be a member of the PGA Tour or play on a new series.” At a players meeting at the 2021 Wells Fargo Championship, Monahan repeated his position: Any player joining the Saudi-backed golf league will face immediate suspension and possible expulsion from the PGA Tour. Though questions have arisen if the tour can lawfully ban a player for life, legal experts confirmed to Golf Digest that the PGA Tour would likely win any battle challenging its authority to do so.

At the Players Championship, the tour’s flagship event, Monahan said “We’re moving on,” adding “All this talk about the league and about money has been distracting to our players, our partners and most importantly our fans. We’re focused on legacy, not leverage.”

What has been the response from golf’s other organizations?

With its strategic alliance, the European Tour— rebranded in 2022 as the DP World Tour —is in lockstep with the PGA Tour. Perhaps the biggest unknown is how Augusta National, the PGA of America, the USGA and the R&A will respond to players siding with LIV Golf; specifically, if LIV Golf players will still be allowed to compete in the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and the Open Championship. Augusta National, the USGA and R&A issued statements supporting the PGA Tour and European Tour in May 2021, yet most of the statements didn't address the playing status of those who defect. The PGA of America was direct in its answer, with CEO Seth Waugh stating at the 2021 PGA Championship that those players who joined the rival league would not be allowed in future PGA Championships or Ryder Cups.

“If someone wants to play on a Ryder Cup for the U.S., they're going to need to be a member of the PGA of America, and they get that membership through being a member of the [PGA] Tour,” Waugh said. “I believe the Europeans feel the same way, and so I don't know that we can be more clear than that. It's a little murkier in our championship, but to play, from a U.S. perspective, you also have to be a member of the tour and the PGA of America to play in our championship, and we don't see that changing.”

Waugh reiterated his stance at the 2022 PGA, calling the LIV Golf concept “flawed” and “not good for the game.”

However, the 2022 U.S. Open will allow LIV Golf players to compete. “Regarding players who may choose to play in London this week, we simply asked ourselves this question—should a player who had earned his way into the 2022 U.S. Open, via our published field criteria, be pulled out of the field as a result of his decision to play in another event? And we ultimately decided that they should not," read a statement. “Our decision regarding our field for the 2022 U.S. Open should not be construed as the USGA supporting an alternative organizing entity, nor supportive of any individual player actions or comments. Rather, it is simply a response to whether or not the USGA views playing in an alternative event, without the consent of their home tour, an offense that should disqualify them for the U.S. Open.”

Cliff Hawkins

Where might this head?

Most likely, a courtroom. The tour is adamant they have the legal authority to issue disciplinary measures, and Norman has openly expressed his desires for players to challenge that authority. Normall additionally telegraphed his litigation threats in an open letter to the tour.

"Surely you jest," Norman wrote in a February letter. "And surely, your lawyers at the PGA Tour must be holding their breath...for decades, I have fought for the rights of players to enjoy a career in which they are rewarded fully and properly for their efforts. They are one-in-a-million athetes. Yet for decades, the Tour has put its own financial ambitions ahead of the players, and every player on the tour knows it. The Tour is the Players Tour not your administration's Tour. Why do you call the crown jewel in all tournaments outside the Majors "The Players Championship" and not "The Administration's Championship?

"But when you try to bluff and intimidate players by bullying and threatening them, you are guilty of going too far, being unfair, and you likely are in violation of the law."

Antitrust issues are not new to the tour. In fact, the FTC concluded after a four-year investigation in the early 1990s that the tour had violated antitrust laws—partially due to the aforementioned rule stipulating permission for a conflicting-event release—and recommended federal action. But no action was ultimately taken, a circumstance credited to the work of then-tour Commissioner Tim Finchem (a lawyer himself who worked in President Jimmy Carter’s administration) and the tour’s lobbying mastery. Coincidentally, this clashed with Norman’s first try to challenge the PGA Tour through his attempt to launch the World Tour.

There was a 2015 class-action lawsuit brought by caddies against the tour using antitrust and intellectual property claims, an effort that proved unsuccessful. The tour has also successfully defended itself against antitrust claims from Morris Communications Corporation regarding the tour’s limitations on real-time scoring, and it prevailed in former tour player Harry Toscano’s Clayton Act antitrust lawsuit against the Senior PGA Tour. History is on its side.

Why does all this matter?

Ethics and morals aside, a divided world at the sport’s top levels could have massive ramifications in the game . Should the list of LIV Golf defectors not grow from the initial London field list, the PGA Tour would be fine; only Johnson qualifies as a player with notable accomplishments that remains in his relative prime. Essentially, LIV Golf would be a Senior Tour light with a handful of amateur and young-ish players.

However, should a high number of 35-and-younger players with playing pedigrees and popularity side with the Saudi-backed league in the following months and years, professional golf could transform into professional boxing, a sport whose competition has been watered down by rivaling governing bodies with conflicting financial interests. The sport’s relevance, and to an extent existence, would be at stake.

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Here's why the PGA Tour just merged with LIV Golf

The PGA Tour announced Tuesday it would merge with LIV Golf, a Saudi-backed men's golf organization that formed last year to compete with the PGA.

News of the merger sent shock waves through the sports world and even reached the highest echelons of the U.S. government, after a reporter sought comment from the Biden administration about the Saudi government's taking such a large stake in men's golf. Biden spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment.

Here's what it all means.

What is LIV Golf?

LIV was created in 2022 by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) alongside two of the world's most prominent players, Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman, and others.

Norman was appointed CEO, but it was Mickelson who helped LIV come into existence. Mickelson accused the PGA Tour of not fairly compensating players for things like highlight clips and other media rights , accusing the organization of "obnoxious greed."

Eventually, Mickelson helped persuade 48 players to abandon the PGA Tour for LIV.

The merger has shown that Saudi Arabia and its interests cannot be isolated, veteran U.S. diplomat Richard N. Haass said.

“It's not as big as the Biden visit or agreement with Iran , and it doesn't offset their recent failure to raise oil prices,” said Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations . "But it does send the signal they are a player who cannot be ignored."

Why did the PGA Tour initially bar players from participating in LIV?

The PGA Tour immediately viewed LIV Golf as a direct competitor — and many in the golf world agreed, often referring to it as a “breakaway league.”

So the Tour decided to force players to pick a side, creating harsh divisions in the golf world.

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan also seemed to disparage the presence of the Saudis in LIV, asking rhetorically in a June 2022 interview , “Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”

And in response to a lawsuit from players who'd joined LIV and said the PGA Tour had retaliated against them, lawyers for the organization condemned LIV as “a strategy by the Saudi government to use sports in an effort to improve its reputation for human rights abuses and other atrocities.”

So why is the PGA Tour merging with LIV?

The two leagues ended up suing each other — but acrimony and lawsuits ultimately proved bad business for the PGA Tour, which made the calculated decision to endure the blowback of turning 180 degrees in exchange for a unified effort with its former rival.

Lawsuits filed by suspended players and a federal probe into possible antitrust actions by the PGA Tour against LIV may also be moot in the wake of Tuesday's announcement.

"We've recognized that together we can have a far greater impact on this game than we can working apart," Monahan told CNBC, seated next to his LIV counterpart, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. "And I give Yasir great credit for coming to the table, coming to the discussions with an open heart and open mind."

Despite the vast financial resources at its disposal thanks to its Saudi backing, LIV had failed to secure major TV deals to broadcast its events, which were often instead relegated to livestreams on YouTube.

With its commercial viability in doubt, LIV officials may have decided it was better to cut their losses and approach the PGA Tour with an offering of peace — and money.

How much money is involved? What are the financial incentives on both sides?

Terms of the merger haven't been disclosed, but LIV Golf players were reportedly being promised eight- and nine-figure earnings to join the league, thanks to the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is worth about $676 billion.

CNBC's David Faber, who helped break Tuesday's news with an exclusive interview with Monahan and Al-Rumayyan, said the PIF plans to invest "billions" into the newly formed entity while it retains a minority stake.

How will major golf events be affected?

They won't.

The Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open (now known as The Open) and the PGA Championship (which, despite its name, isn't actually owned by the PGA Tour) are all separate entities from the PGA Tour.

Nor does the Tour control the biennial team-based Ryder Cup tournament — though heading into this year's event, there were questions about whether U.S. team captain Zach Johnson would forgo selecting LIV members.

Have there been mergers in professional sports before?

All four of North America's major professional team sports leagues have some kind of merger in their histories, most notably the NFL-AFL union that led to the Super Bowl.

The first World Series in 1903 , the 1976 NBA-ABA deal and the NHL's 1979 takeover of the upstart WHA , though, all pale in comparison to the geopolitical stage where the PGA Tour-LIV drama played out.

What are people in golf saying?

As expected, reaction to the stunning deal ran the gamut — from LIV backers' spiking the ball to 9/11 survivors' criticizing the PGA Tour for merging with the Saudi-backed LIV, which they likened to “terrorists,” with others resigned to money's simply ruling the day.

Former President Donald Trump typed in all caps on Truth Social, boasting that he predicted that the PGA Tour would have to come to terms with LIV.

A key Sept. 11 support group, 9/11 Families United, said it was "shocked and deeply offended" and claimed the merger is "bankrolled by billions in sportswashing money from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." It added: "Saudi operatives played a key role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and now it is bankrolling all of professional golf."

George Washington University sports marketing professor Lisa Delpy Neirotti verbally shrugged her shoulders and said the deal shouldn't have been a shock.

"I ask my students how to spell the word 'sports?' It's m-o-n-e-y," she said. "Fans have a short memory. They really want to see their stars. They want to see a better product."

Rob Wile is a breaking business news reporter for NBC News Digital.

David K. Li is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.

PGA vs. LIV: How pro golf’s civil war got started & where it’s headed

T hink about golf, and you picture sun-soaked fairways, perfectly manicured greens, and commentators providing play-by-plays in hushed, nearly reverent tones — hardly a place you’d expect to find a battleground brewing. But that’s just what happened between the PGA Tour, organizer of North America’s largest professional golf tournaments, and LIV Golf, an upstart contingent backed by the Saudi government.

LIV Golf was a high-profile part of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s strategy to transition his kingdom’s economy away from its one-note dependence on oil. Through a plan entitled Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has spent billions in the hopes of generating more tourism revenue — and, critics add, deflecting attention from its human rights abuses . 

The money, which comes from Saudi Arabia’s $925 billion Public Investment Fund, has built high-end resorts and futuristic cities , bought majority ownership stakes in big-name sports franchises (like the Newcastle United Premier League soccer team), and hosted major tournaments in professional wrestling, tennis, and golf. LIV Golf was founded in 2021.

In order to entice top talent to its roster, LIV reportedly offered players $100 million guaranteed contracts to defect from the PGA Tour. The PGA responded in turn by suspending PGA players who participated in the inaugural LIV Golf Invitational, adding that anyone who competed in “unauthorized tournaments” would be barred from returning to the PGA for one year.

Related: Tiger Woods’ net worth: An in-depth look at his wealth after his breakup with Nike

Lawsuits followed; the U.S. Department of Justice began an antitrust probe —  Golf Digest likened it to a “civil war.” Shockingly, in July 2023, LIV Golf and the PGA called a truce, surprising everyone with a promise to end their battles and join forces going forward.

But just how did that happen? And, perhaps more importantly, what comes next?

What is LIV? Who runs it?

PGA Tour players compete in weekly tournaments from January through September and participate in four annual “majors:” The Masters, the US Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship. 

Until LIV burst onto the scene, the world’s best golfers were PGA players: Tiger Woods , Scottie Scheffler, Sahith Theegala, and Collin Morikawa, for example, all signed non-compete contracts to be part of the PGA Tour, as did Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Sam Snead before them.

The first word in LIV Golf isn’t a word at all; it’s actually the Roman numeral 54. That’s the number of holes played during LIV tournaments — and it’s also the score a player would receive if they birdied every hole on a par-72 course. LIV has even dangled a $54 million bonus as a reward for any player who achieves that near-impossible feat (ostensibly when LIV hosts 72-hole tournaments). 

In its inaugural season, LIV signed former PGA Tour players Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, and Martin Kaymer; in 2022, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, and Patrick Reed accepted the offer, and shortly after he won the Masters in 2023, Jon Rahm joined LIV as a team captain.

Greg Norman

LIV is marketed as “the future of golf,” and its CEO and Commissioner is Greg Norman, a 20-time PGA champion who is considered to be one of the game’s biggest disruptors. 

Norman’s assertive playing style earned him two wins at the British Open, but it also translated into a lucrative career off the fairway: The Greg Norman Company owns more than a dozen ventures, including a golf course design firm, an activewear clothing line, a commercial real estate business, a vineyard, a restaurant, a Wagyu beef brand, and a private equity fund, to name a few.

When Golf Digest put together its list of 50 highest-paid players in 2023, it estimated Norman’s endorsements at $35 million and his salary from LIV to be $50 million, although other outlets reported it could be as high as $800 million — a staggering sum.

Norman actually attempted to launch a golf league of his own in 1994. His World Tour would have offered guaranteed contracts to a select number of top players to compete in tournaments and complement the PGA Tour schedule, but it was rejected by top brass. Therefore, the opportunity from LIV seemed tailor-made for Norman, and he told Sports Illustrated that joining the league was a way for him and other players to expand their “generational wealth” as well as further commercialize the game.

However, Norman was reportedly unaware of the merger between PGA Tour and LIV when it was announced in June 2023, with a source telling Sports Illustrated that Norman’s role was akin to a “figurehead” and that he would not be included the league’s future plans — which Norman rebuffed, describing such speculation as “white noise.”

Donald Trump

As the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump kept unusually close ties with Saudi Arabia — in fact, it was the first place he visited after his inauguration. Calling Saudi Arabia “a great ally,” Trump resumed sales of weapons to the country that had been banned under previous administrations, and he continued to voice his support for the conservative nation even after it detained hundreds of businessmen in 2017 and when the CIA confirmed that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, an event that sparked widespread international outrage.

Related: Vince McMahon’s net worth amid latest sexual assault lawsuit

While Trump is not directly involved with LIV Golf, a LIV tournament was held at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, even though families of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks staged protests beforehand. The Trump family has shifted priorities away from their hotel brands in recent years, focusing more on golf’s enormous earnings potential, and they even hosted the 2022 LIV Team Championship at the Trump National Doral resort in Miami. 

LIV returned to both Trump properties in 2023 and added a tournament at Trump National Washington DC. In 2024, a tournament was held again at Doral; in addition, the Trump name has been licensed to a golf resort under development by Saudi Arabia’s leading real estate company, Dar Al Arkan, in Muscat, Oman. 

What are the differences between LIV and the PGA?

There are some important distinctions between the way the PGA Tour and LIV Golf operate. These are some of the most notable: 

Player payouts

Perhaps the biggest difference between the two organizations is the way players' payouts work. 

Unlike the PGA Tour, where a player can compete in several tournament rounds and walk away without a single dollar in prize money, LIV offers guaranteed money through signing contracts — LIV even refers to its players as “player-owners” because they also receive equity stakes in their teams. 

As part of their contracts, LIV players must agree to take part in LIV promotions and wear LIV apparel.

Playing format

LIV also has a different playing format, covering 54 holes instead of 72. It has shotgun starts instead of a staggered format like the PGA, which results in a faster-paced game. In addition, each LIV tournament features 48 players grouped into 12 four-person teams headed by a captain.

Tournament locations

In 2024, LIV will hold just 14 events worldwide, in Mexico, Australia, Spain, Singapore, and the United States, while the PGA Tour hosts 39 events solely across North America.

In a PGA tournament, after the first two rounds, only the top 70 players advance to the finals; there is no “cut line” in LIV Golf.

Player standings

LIV Golf has also impacted worldwide player standings. LIV withdrew its request from the Official World Golf Rankings in March 2024, which means that LIV players cannot receive world ranking points. 

However, there are caveats: If a LIV player paid their PGA membership dues before June 30, 2022, their points accrued can be counted towards the Ryder Cup. You may also have noticed a few LIV players at the Masters tournament — that’s because previous Green Jacket winners receive lifetime access to Augusta National, as do players who have won The British Open, US Open, or a PGA Championship within the past 5 years.

With LIV on the scene, the plot has certainly thickened.

View the original article to see embedded media.

What is the big deal between PGA and LIV?

As LIV continues to evolve, several PGA players, including legends like Tiger Woods, have voiced heated dissent. Taking aim at LIV’s guaranteed contracts, Woods wondered what incentive players had to even practice anymore. And when the secret merger between PGA and LIV was revealed on June 6, 2023, Woods expressed his frustration that the players were not given any input.

Rory McIlroy, who served on the PGA Policy Board from 2021 to 2023 and holds 24 PGA Tour victories, including all four majors (winning the PGA Championship twice in 2012 and 2014), told ESPN he hoped LIV “goes away,” although he has since cooled his jets, telling the Stick to Football podcast that he has “accepted [the] reality” of the LIV league and admitted to previously being “too judgmental” about the whole situation.

Is LIV Golf more popular than the PGA?

Hands down, the PGA Tour has bigger broadcasting deals — and the ratings to prove it. This allows PGA tournaments to be seen by more people, which in turn allows the networks it partners with to shore up more advertising revenue.

Typically, networks pay sports leagues for the right to broadcast their games: The nine-year deal the PGA Tour inked in 2020 with NBC Sports, CBS Sports, and ESPN was valued at $680 million, according to Variety .

Although LIV makes sure its schedule does not compete with PGA, it has an exclusive agreement with the CW network to broadcast and stream its tournaments, with early rounds broadcast on the CW app. 

Previously, LIV had aired commercial-free on YouTube in 2022; when the CW was acquired by Nexstar in 2024, executives promised to attract a greater number of viewers and more diverse audiences to LIV Golf.

But LIV has a long way to go to match the longstanding viewership enjoyed by the PGA Tour. That was no more apparent than in January 2024, when LIV Golf was handed a rare opportunity to take advantage of PGA viewership when a weather event canceled the final round of the PGA Tour’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Tournament. 

The LIV Golf Mayakoba in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, was happening the same day and even featured pro superstar Jon Rahm. According to Nielsen, the event generated 432,000 viewers, which was nearly three times more than its average, yet this was still far less than what Pebble Beach got for the rounds that had already transpired, at 1.95 million.

Does LIV Golf pay more than the PGA?

LIV certainly offers players more money upfront, considering the nine-figure contracts Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, and Cam Smith reportedly received, to name a few.

And LIV can be thanked for its role in causing the PGA to “up its ante” in terms of prize money in order to hold onto its talent. The PGA Tour gave away more than $560 million in 2023, and in 2021, it introduced the Player Impact Program as a way to reward the league’s top 20 players who help to drive interest in the sport. In 2023, that fund topped out at $100 million. This is comparable to the $405 million in prize money LIV Golf handed out, including $115 million in team prizes.

Contracts aside; in terms of prize money, the PGA Tour and LIV Golf are handing out similar-sized paychecks to top players. According to GolfWeek, 2023’s top-paid players actually had greater representation on the PGA Tour:

Top 5 PGA Tour player earnings in 2023

Top 5 liv golf player earnings in 2023, did liv merge with the pga.

All this being said, a huge question remains: Will the merger move forward? Through terms of the deal announced in June 2023, LIV and the PGA Tour would create a new entity, tentatively dubbed “NewCo,” that would own the PGA Tour’s broadcast rights, LIV Golf, and the rights of the DP World Tour, also known as the European Tour (which entered into a strategic alliance with the PGA Tour in 2021). 

“NewCo” would be led by a Board of Directors including Yasir al-Rumanayyan, the Governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which created LIV, as well as three yet-to-be-named executives of the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour would oversee how tournaments are played and would continue to exist as a non-profit entity.

Around the same time of the announcement, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan announced he would be taking a month-long leave of absence due to a “medical event” that Golf Digest later reported to be anxiety-related.

Weeks turned into months, but no agreement was reached. When Monahan finally returned to work, he was asked about the merger’s progress, but he remained elusive. The December 31, 2023, deadline for the proposed merger came and went. In a memo to players, however, Monahan stressed they had made progress in their negotiations and were working on an extension.

In the meantime, LIV and the PGA Tour have certainly kept busy. In March, al-Rumanayyan hosted a summit in the Bahamas with PGA player-directors including Tiger Woods in the hopes of fostering goodwill between both parties. At the beginning of the year, the PGA Tour announced a new, for-profit venture called PGA Tour Enterprises, which would offer equity stakes to its 200 player members. 

This deal was made possible by a $3 billion investment by a group that included Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox and the Liverpool Football Club; Steve Cohen, owner of the New York Mets; Arthur Blank, owner of the Atlanta Falcons; basketball billionaire LeBron James; and the musician Drake.

And according to The Telegraph , in April PGA Tour Enterprises rewarded its top players for staying loyal to the PGA Tour by offering 9-figure bonuses of their own. Woods is set to receive $100 million in equity; McIllroy will be getting about half that amount. In total, the top 36 players are set to receive $750 million over a multi-year vesting schedule.

What happens next is anyone's guess.

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PGA Tour players learn how much loyalty is worth in new equity program

Tiger Woods waves after his final round at the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club Sunday, April 14, 2024, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, waves after making a putt on the sixth hole during the second round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Friday, April 19, 2024, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

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Players who stayed loyal to the PGA Tour amid lucrative recruitment by Saudi-funded LIV Golf are starting to find out how much that loyalty could be worth.

The PGA Tour on Wednesday began contacting the 193 players eligible for the $930 million from a “Player Equity Program” under the new PGA Tour Enterprises .

The bulk of that money — $750 million — went to 36 players based on their career performance, the last five years and how they fared in a recent program that measured their star power.

How much they received was not immediately known. Emails were going out Wednesday afternoon and Thursday informing players of what they would get. One person who saw a list of how the equity shares were doled out said the names had been redacted. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because many details of the program were not made public.

The Telegraph reported Tiger Woods was to receive $100 million in equity and Rory McIlroy could get $50 million, without saying how it came up with those numbers.

Commissioner Jay Monahan outlined the first-of-its-kind equity ownership program in a Feb. 7 memo to players, a week after Strategic Sports Group became a minority investor in the new commercial PGA Tour Enterprises.

The private equity group, a consortium of professional sports owners led by the Fenway Sports Group, made an initial investment of $1.5 billion that could be worth $3 billion. The tour is still negotiating with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia — the financial muscle behind the rival LIV Golf league — as an investor.

Any deal with PIF would most certainly increase the value of the equity shares.

Another person with knowledge of the Player Equity Program, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the dealings, said the equity money is not part of the SSG investment. That money was geared toward growth capital.

Golf.com received a series of informational videos on the Player Equity Program that was sent to players and reported only 50% of the equity would vest after four years, 25% more after six years and the rest of it after eight years.

It also reported how the 36 players from the top tier were judged on “career points,” such as how long they were full members, victories, how often they reached the Tour Championship and extra points for significant victories.

Jason Gore, the tour’s chief player officer, said in one of the videos, “It’s really about making sure that our players know the PGA Tour is the best place to compete and showing them how much the Tour appreciates them being loyal.”

Emails also were sent to 64 players who would share $75 million in aggregate equity based on the past three years, and $30 million to 57 players who are PGA Tour members. Also, $75 million in equity shares was set aside for 36 past players instrumental in building the tour.

The program has an additional $600 million in equity grants that are recurring for future PGA Tour players. Those would be awarded in amounts of $100 million annually started in 2025.

Players only get equity shares from one of the four tiers now, although everyone would be eligible for the recurring grants.

Even with equity ownership geared toward making the PGA Tour better, the concern was players questioning who got how much and whether they received their fair share.

LIV Golf lured away seven major champions dating to 2018 since it launched in 2022, all with guaranteed contracts and most of them believed to have topped $100 million.

McIlroy, playing this week in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, was asked how much would make players feel validated for their decision to stay with the PGA Tour.

“I think the one thing we’ve learned in golf over the last two years is there’s never enough,” McIlroy replied.

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Golf Australia signs deal with LIV in first partnership with Saudi-backed tour

• Cameron Smith’s Ripper GC and LIV to help fund junior program
• PGA of Australia still aligned with DP World Tour

LIV Golf has struck a deal to help fund Golf Australia’s junior program, in the first formal relationship between the steward of the game in Australia and the Saudi Arabia-backed entity.

The arrangement – which involves LIV and its Ripper GC franchise of Australian players led by Cameron Smith – has been in negotiations for weeks.

A formal announcement is expected in the coming days to coincide with the LIV tournament in Adelaide, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald .

The deal sees LIV and Ripper GC make it cheaper for some children to access My Golf, the junior program run by GA.

GA also has staff working on a My Golf activation in Adelaide this week alongside the LIV tournament promotions.

In 2022-23, 33,000 children participated in My Golf, according to GA’s annual report, a figure that grew 22% on the previous year.

The cost of My Golf varies depending on the location and type of program. A single after school session can cost less than $50, but a regular hit over a school term is priced in the hundreds of dollars.

GA’s decision to accept the subsidies from LIV is the first major step by Australia’s golf establishment towards the upstart tour.

The PGA of Australia (PGAA), the body representing tournament and club professionals and organiser of the Australasian Tour, is still aligned with LIV rival the DP World Tour.

As manager of the game in Australia GA’s remit is on building participation and the body receives funding from the federal government.

However, GA and the PGAA have largely combined operations, adding a layer of complexity to the deal.

GA’s chief executive, James Sutherland, said last month Australia looked at LIV differently from other parts of the world.

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“There’s clearly an ‘anti’ or a conservative sentiment about the Saudis in the US, and the further east you go on a world map from America, the more moderate the views are,” he said.

LIV commissioner Greg Norman said on Wednesday he was “very proud” of investments his organisation was making into golf generally.

“If it wasn’t for LIV, these additional investment dollars going into the sport would never have happened,” he said.

In excess of 80,000 people are expected to attend the LIV Adelaide tournament this weekend.

Norman has described the Adelaide event as the “benchmark” for LIV worldwide. LIV golf is funded by Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund.

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Greg Norman ‘open-minded’ to altering LIV’s signature 54-hole format

Greg Norman, the CEO of LIV Golf, indicated he is “very open-minded” to the idea of expanding tournaments on the Saudi-backed circuit from 54 to 72 holes but said there is an “economic impact about putting television on for 72 holes.”

His comment is significant because, like LIV Golf’s team competition and shotgun starts, the 54-hole length of tournaments has been a defining feature, with “LIV” coming from the Roman numeral for 54. Jon Rahm, a star player whose switch to LIV in December was a jolt to the PGA Tour , said he hoped a 72-hole format might help unite the established and upstart tours.

“It’s a great conversation to have,” Norman said of expansion at a news conference ahead of the tour’s event in Adelaide, Australia. “We will continue to have that conversation going forward. But we sit back and say: ‘What value do we get on putting on television on Thursday? How do we build out in the future?’

“ … Maybe it is Thursday and you allow another 30,000 people coming in on a Thursday. There are things that we sit back and look at to see what is the most optimal solution to make this a better and better and better event, and 72 holes is discussed.”

Seated with Norman at the news conference, Rahm, the 2023 Masters and 2021 U.S. Open champion, spoke of a “level of comfort” with the 72-hole format but agreed that a longer format had to make financial sense for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, with the decision coming at a business rather than athletic level.

“It could help a lot of fans’ trust in LIV a little bit more because that’s a lot of the complaints that I see from a lot of people,” he said.

But he added, “at the end of the day, LIV is a business. If it doesn’t fit the product, it doesn’t fit the product. I’m just a player. There’s a lot of people that are a lot smarter than me that can figure it out and explain why they believe 54 holes may be better for them.”

A move to 72 holes might also lead to the Official World Golf Ranking recognizing LIV golfers. In October, its board denied LIV’s application to receive the ranking points most golfers need to qualify for golf’s biggest events, although it cited a variety of factors other than the length of LIV’s tournaments.

Rahm, the world’s No. 1 player when he competed on the PGA Tour, pointed out that global soccer works, with every league following the same rules.

“In football, European football, you have the Premier League, you have the Spanish League, you have the German League, you have Serie A, you have the Champions League, the Euro Cup, many other things,” he said . “The one thing I realized is they all play under the same set of rules. While we play under most set of rules, the one key difference is 72 holes. That’s one of the main reasons why I believe it could help us.”

Rahm had previously opposed LIV’s 54-hole, no cut format , saying in June 2022 that it “is not a golf tournament. … It’s that simple.”

“I want to play against the best in the world in a format that’s been going on for hundreds of years. That’s what I want to see,” Rahm said in June 2022. “Yeah, money is great, but when [his wife] Kelley and I … we started talking about it, and we’re like, ‘Will our lifestyle change if I got $400 million?’ No, it will not change one bit.

“Truth be told, I could retire right now with what I’ve made and live a very happy life and not play golf again,” he continued. “So I’ve never really played the game of golf for monetary reasons. I play for the love of the game, and I want to play against the best in the world. I’ve always been interested in history and legacy, and right now the PGA Tour has that.”

Maybe LIV Golf will, too.

As for another star PGA golfer, Norman also addressed a recent report that Rory McIlroy, an outspoken opponent of LIV Golf, would switch for $850 million. McIlroy shot down the report and Norman dismissed it Wednesday as “just typical white noise that gets out there in the industry.”

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Chicago to host LIV Golf Individual Championship in September

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Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Editing by Hugh Lawson

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Phil Mickelson to play in opening Saudi-backed LIV Golf Invitational Series tournament at Centurion Club

Phil Mickelson has not played since February after comments made about breakaway tour; opening LIV Golf Invitational starts this week at London's Centurion Club; Sergio Garcia, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace reportedly resign from PGA Tour

Tuesday 7 June 2022 11:37, UK

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Phil Mickelson says he is returning to golf with a "renewed spirit and excitement" as he confirmed he will play in the first LIV Golf Invitational Series tournament at Centurion Club this week - and future major championships.

Mickelson has been linked to LIV Golf for months but began a self-imposed hiatus from the sport in February - even skipping his title defence at the PGA Championship - amid backlash over comments he made about the breakaway tour.

The 51-year-old's public image took a hit when the author of an unauthorised biography said the American golfer told him he was willing to look past Saudi Arabia's human rights record to gain economic leverage over the PGA Tour.

"I am thrilled to begin with LIV Golf and I appreciate everyone involved. I also intend to play the majors" Phil Mickelson

Mickelson said in a statement posted on Twitter: "First and foremost, I want to again apologise to the many people I offended and hurt with my comments a few months ago.

"I have made mistakes in my career in some of the things I have said and done. Taking time away and self-reflecting has been very humbling.

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"I needed to start prioritising the people that I love the most and work on becoming a better version of myself.

"I have spent this time with Amy and loved ones. I have been engaged and intentional in continued therapy and feel healthy and much more at peace.

LIV Golf Invitational Series: All you need to know

McIlroy questions quality of LIV Golf field

Beem: Mixed opinions on Mickelson’s legacy

Mickelson to play in Saudi golf league: Possible repercussions explained

"I realise I still have a long way to go, but I am embracing the work ahead."

Among the other golfers already confirmed for the 48-player event being held June 9-11 at Centurion Club are former world No 1 Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Louis Oosthuizen.

Late on Monday night, it was reported the manager for Garcia, Oosthuizen, Schwartzel and Branden Grace said they had resigned from the PGA Tour, joining Kevin Na who made the decision over the weekend.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan previously told tour members that players who elect to participate in the LIV league face disciplinary action.

Mickelson went on to explain some of the reasons why he decided to back the LIV series.

He continued: "I am ready to come back to play the game I love but after 32 years this new path is a fresh start, one that is exciting for me at this stage of my career and is clearly transformative, not just for myself, but ideally for the game and my peers.

"I also love the progressive format and think it will be exciting for fans. Just as importantly, it will provide balance, allowing me to focus on a healthier approach to life on and off the course. I am incredibly grateful for what this game and the PGA Tour has given me.

"I would like to think that I have given back as well but now I am excited about this new opportunity."

pic.twitter.com/riT2ot0yvk — Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) June 6, 2022

Mickelson added: "I am thrilled to begin with LIV Golf and I appreciate everyone involved. I also intend to play the majors.

"I fully realise and respect some may disagree with this decision and have strong opinions and I empathise with that. I have a renewed spirit and excitement for the game.

"I am incredibly grateful for the support of my fans, partners, friends and peers and I hope in time those sentiments, relationships and support continue."

Greg Norman, chief executive and commissioner of LIV Golf, said: "Phil Mickelson is unequivocally one of the greatest golfers of this generation.

"His contributions to the sport and connection to fans around the globe cannot be overstated and we are grateful to have him.

"He strengthens an exciting field for London where we're proud to launch a new era for golf."

Fowler: PGA Tour can be better; No decision on LIV yet

Rickie Fowler says he has received an offer from LIV Golf but hasn't decided whether to compete.

"To be straightforward with you guys, I haven't necessarily made a decision one way or the other. I've mentioned in the past, do I currently think that the PGA Tour is the best place to play? I do. Do I think it can be better? Yes.

"So I think it's an interesting position. Obviously, there's the LIV and Premier [Golf League], as well. These tours or leagues or whatever-however you want to classify or call them, they wouldn't really be coming up if they didn't see that there was more opportunity out there.

"I've always looked at competition being a good thing. It's the driving force of our game. You know, being able to have games with guys at home, that's how I always grew up is competing. I think competition ultimately makes people better, whether it's business sport.

"So it's interesting, that's for sure."

'Fairly swift and fairly harsh repercussions'

"It’s no surprise. Even with the comments he made earlier this year, I think he was always intent to go and play in this series and explore new options and new opportunities. This was always his plan" Rich Beem

Analysis from Sky Sports' commentator Rich Beem...

"Nobody really knows what the repercussions are going to be from the PGA Tour, and I think the PGA Tour is waiting basically until the shotgun starts on Friday. Once that happens then [players] have actively participated in the LIV series. Now the PGA Tour can finally dole out those sanctions and those penalties.

"I'm not exactly sure what those are going to be. I would expect them to be fairly swift and fairly harsh.

"As far as the USG and the R&A, now that's a big question. I think if they don't somewhat follow suit and possibly, I don't want to say ban the players because they are both 'Opens', so they are allowing everyone to play.

"If they don't set a precedent and say we are looking for the best players in the world and we are trying to dole out players that are actively on tours that we recognise, then they've got to do something in order to steer players away because I know there are a couple of young players, that have just turned professional, that are joining the LIV Series in order to establish themselves in the professional game and try to make money while they are doing it.

"It's a place to play. That's fine and dandy but unless they are part of a tour that is known and sanctioned around the world, they've got to try and keep these players from trying to go over there and taking the money from these leagues.

"So, it will be interesting to see what kind of wording they come up with."

'Players will look to see how this first event goes before dipping their toe in'

Analysis from Sky Sports' Jamie Weir...

"Jay Monahan is very confident [the PGA] has the legal framework in place to be able to not welcome players back on the PGA Tour but Greg Norman on the other hand is clear they don't, so it will all almost certainly end up in court.

"The PGA Tour and DP World Tour are completely separate from all four majors. They are all individually run. Augusta National run The Masters, the USGA run next week's US Open, the PGA of America run the PGA Championship and of course the R&A run The Open. They've all kept their powder pretty dry on what happens to those players if they decide to play in the Saudi series, whether they're welcome at the majors.

"Next week is the US Open. Phil Mickelson and the likes of Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Louis Oosthuizen - there are I think 12 players in the field at Centurion who are all in the field for the US Open.

"As things stand, they're currently welcome at Brookline - they haven't been banned yet and I would be very surprised if they were at this late stage.

"I would imagine there are a lot of players looking to see how this first event goes. They don't want to dip their toe in the water just yet. They want the likes of Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Louis Oosthuizen to be the sacrificial guinea pigs and if it's a hit, they'll be involved in the next one which will be in Portland, Oregon which is just a few weeks away.

"It's an extraordinary story in golf for the last few months and it's the gift that keeps on giving. It's been farcical at times."

LIV Golf Invitational Series tournament explained

The Centurion tournament - which boasts a total prize fund of £20.2 million with £4 million to the winner - is the first of eight LIV Golf events scheduled for this year with plans to expand to 14 in the coming years. The competitions are to be played over 54 holes rather than the standard 72 with groups teeing off simultaneously on different holes in a 'shotgun' start.

Norman 'surprised' by Na resigning from PGA Tour to join Saudi circuit

Norman admits he was "surprised" by Kevin Na's decision to resign from the PGA Tour in order to compete in the LIV Golf Invitational Series.

The PGA Tour and DP World Tour have refused to grant players the required releases to contest the £20m event, with Norman vowing to "defend, reimburse and represent" any players sanctioned if they play regardless.

The scale of any sanctions has not been revealed, but Na said he anticipated facing "disciplinary proceedings and legal action" if he had remained a PGA Tour member.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kevin Na (@kevinna915)

"I'm a bit surprised, actually," Norman said in quotes released to the PA news agency. "The players don't have to resign from the Tour. That was Kevin's decision for whatever reason he wanted to make it.

"I respect the man for making a bold decision. I respect the person for wanting to come on board with us, because he knows he has a great opportunity with LIV. I'll applaud him for it, but he didn't have to, from our behalf, because LIV would be there (for him)."

McIlroy questions quality of LIV Golf field - but understands lure for players

Rory McIlroy says the field for the opening LIV Golf Invitational Series event "is nothing to jump and down about" compared to line-ups on the PGA Tour.

The four-time major winner said: "When I turned pro, I was playing for money. All I wanted to do was get my tour card and make a living playing golf. You need a job and you need to make money to buy yourself a house.

"Do I play golf for money now? No. My situation has changed over the years. But when I started playing the game professionally, yeah, money was at the top of the list.

"Some guys are in a position where they are not guaranteed a job next year. It's hard to stay in the top 125, especially when you're in your 40s and maybe don't hit the ball as far as you've used to. As we've seen, it's a young man's game nowadays.

"So if another entity comes along and says, 'we'll guarantee you this amount for three years', plus you're playing for a ton more prize money, you're playing fewer events and you can spend more time with your family it's very appealing to some of those guys that are in that position.

"Again, I'm not in that position, and it's not something that I would do. But you have to try to put yourself in other people's shoes and see where they are coming from."

Fitzpatrick: LIV Golf Series of 'no interest' for now

Matt Fitzpatrick has insisted his future remains with the PGA, but he would have to re-evaluate if the LIV Series became the main tour.

"Tiger made a great point at the PGA the other day in his press conference. He's there to create legacies and to win tournaments and to win majors, and that's kind of - that's definitely where I am," said Fitzpatrick.

"And it was interesting, it was kind of, you know, I'll be honest, some tournaments where I'm maybe not necessarily in it, and I can't win, then I do think, oh, you know, well, at least on the bright side I've made this much this week after the tournament's over.

"I came away from the US PGA and literally couldn't care less about how much I made that week. I was just gutted that I didn't win. I had a chance and I didn't take it, and that kind of said a lot to myself about myself. That's all I'm bothered about out here.

"You want to have records. I want to win tournaments, and for me, that's why for now, the sort of LIV Golf doesn't interest me."

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Middle East Crisis Israel Appears to Soften Stance in Cease-Fire Talks

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• Destroyed buildings in Rafah on Monday. Associated Press
• Relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages protest in Tel Aviv on Monday. Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated Press
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• Looking at a damaged building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday. Hatem Khaled/Reuters
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Israel is open to a truce involving an initial release of 33 hostages, officials say.

Israel’s latest offer would accept fewer hostages to be freed during the first phase of a new truce in Gaza, according to three Israeli officials, offering a hint of hope for cease-fire negotiations that could restart as soon as Tuesday.

For months, Israel had demanded that Hamas release at least 40 hostages — women, older people and those who are seriously ill — in order to secure a new truce. Now the Israeli government is prepared to settle for only 33, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the sensitive matter.

The change was prompted partly by the fact that Israel now believes that some of the 40 have died in captivity , according to one of the officials.

Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, said at the World Economic Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Monday that Israel had made an “extraordinarily generous” offer and that Hamas alone stood in the way of a deal. David Cameron, the British foreign minister, said at the same conference that the offer included a sustained 40-day cease-fire and the release of potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the Israeli hostages.

Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s foreign minister, said at the conference that he was “hopeful” about the latest cease-fire proposal, but did not say what it involved or who had proposed it.

“The proposal has taken into account the positions of both sides,” Mr. Shoukry said, adding that “we are waiting to have a final decision.”

The shift has raised expectations that Hamas and Israel might be edging closer to sealing their first truce since a weeklong cease-fire in November, when Hamas released 105 captives in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. A senior Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, said on social media on Monday that Hamas was studying a new Israeli proposal, but did not say what the proposal was.

Hamas and its allies captured roughly 240 Israelis and foreigners in their attack on Oct. 7, which prompted Israel to go to war in Gaza. More than 130 hostages are believed to still be held in Gaza, but some are thought to have died.

Negotiations over a new pause, mediated by Egypt and Qatar, have stalled for months over disagreements about the number of hostages and prisoners who should be exchanged in a future deal. Another obstacle has been whether Israel would allow civilians from northern Gaza who fled the Israeli invasion to return to their homes, and how many would be permitted to do so.

The length of a cease-fire has also been a key stumbling block. Hamas wants it to be permanent, while Israel wants another temporary pause so that it could still send troops into Rafah, the last major Gazan city under Hamas control, though one where more than a million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter. Far-right members of Israel’s governing coalition have threatened to bring down Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government if the war ends without Hamas’s total defeat.

A mid-ranking Israeli delegation is planning to fly to Cairo on Tuesday to restart talks mediated by Egypt, but only if Hamas also agrees to attend, according to two of the Israeli officials. A senior Hamas official said that a delegation was already in Cairo on Monday.

At the economic forum in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Cameron, the British foreign secretary, said something else must happen for the conflict to end: “The people responsible for Oct. 7, the Hamas leadership, would have to leave Gaza.”

Vivian Nereim and Edward Wong contributed reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

— Patrick Kingsley and Adam Rasgon reporting from Jerusalem

Biden speaks to the leaders of Egypt and Qatar to press for Hamas’s agreement on a new cease-fire.

President Biden spoke on Monday with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar as he sought to increase pressure on Hamas to accept a deal that would result in a temporary cease-fire in the war in Gaza and the release of some of the hostages held there.

According to a statement from the office of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, he and Mr. Biden discussed the negotiations and Egypt’s efforts to broker a cease-fire. They also reiterated their support for a two-state solution, discussed the importance of containing the conflict to the region and emphasized their opposition to a military escalation in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, which Israel seems poised to invade.

Mr. Biden also spoke on Monday with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar. According to the White House, Mr. Biden urged the Qatari leader “to exert all efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas,” saying that “this is now the only obstacle” to an immediate cease-fire.

Mr. al-Sisi and Mr. al-Thani have been prime intermediaries with Hamas through months of fitful negotiations to reach a deal to halt the hostilities, and Mr. Biden hopes they will prod the group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, to accept the U.S.-brokered proposal on the table. On Sunday, Mr. Biden spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, expressed a hopeful view of the prospects for an agreement. “In recent days, there has been progress in talks,” she told reporters at the White House.

Like other American officials, Ms. Jean-Pierre said that Hamas, not Israel, was the obstacle to an agreement.

“The onus is indeed on Hamas,” she said. “There is a deal on the table, and they need to take it.”

— Peter Baker reporting from Washington

Blinken meets with Arab officials to discuss Gaza and postwar plans.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Arab officials on Monday in Saudi Arabia about the war between Israel and Hamas and the difficult issues it has created, from humanitarian aid to hostages. Mr. Blinken plans to travel to Jordan and Israel on Tuesday.

After landing in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, shortly after dawn, Mr. Blinken met with Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, and then with foreign ministers and a top foreign policy adviser from five other Arab nations in the Persian Gulf that, along with Saudi Arabia, form the Gulf Cooperation Council. Prince Faisal was also part of that second meeting. On Monday night Mr. Blinken met with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

The State Department listed the cease-fire and hostage issues first in the summary it released of Mr. Blinken’s one-on-one meeting with the prince. The two “discussed ongoing efforts to reach an immediate cease-fire in Gaza that would secure the release of hostages held by Hamas,” the department said.

The two diplomats also talked about greater regional integration and “a pathway to a Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel,” the summary said. That was a reference to negotiations over a broad deal that would involve the United States, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Palestinian representatives agreeing to terms that would result in the creation of a Palestinian state and greater diplomatic recognition for Israel in the region.

Mr. Blinken planned to meet with Arab and European officials in a group later on Monday to talk about plans for rebuilding Gaza, even though Israel is still carrying out its war there and has not stepped back from its difficult — and perhaps impossible — goal of fully eradicating Hamas.

Saudi Arabia is hosting a three-day meeting of the World Economic Forum, and top Arab officials, including Mr. Blinken’s diplomatic counterparts, are attending the event in Riyadh. The gathering includes senior ministers from Qatar and Egypt, the two Arab mediators in multiple rounds of talks over a potential cease-fire between Israel and Hamas .

“The quickest way to bring this to an end is to get to a cease-fire and the release of hostages,” Mr. Blinken said in an onstage talk with Borge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum. “Hamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel. And at the moment, the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a cease-fire is Hamas.”

“I’m hopeful they will make the right decision and we can have a fundamental change in the dynamic,” he added.

Mr. Blinken and other top aides of President Biden have also been trying to push for a long-term political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is where the broader deal comes in. In a call meant to pave the way for Mr. Blinken’s trip, his seventh to the region since the war began, Mr. Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel spoke by phone on Sunday afternoon for nearly an hour.

The two leaders discussed “increases in the delivery of humanitarian assistance into Gaza,” according to a White House statement released after the call, and Mr. Biden repeated his warning against an Israeli ground assault on Rafah in southern Gaza. He also reviewed with Mr. Netanyahu the negotiations over a hostage release.

In their best-case scenario, the Biden administration envisions Saudi Arabia and perhaps a few other Arab nations agreeing to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel. In exchange, Saudi Arabia would receive advanced weapons and security guarantees, including a mutual defense treaty , from the United States and a commitment for U.S. cooperation on a civilian nuclear program in the kingdom .

For its part, Israel would have to commit to a concrete pathway to the founding of a Palestinian nation, with specific deadlines, U.S. and Saudi officials say.

“I think it’s clear that in the absence of a real political horizon for the Palestinians, it’s going to be much harder, if not impossible, to really have a coherent plan for Gaza itself,” Mr. Blinken said at the public talk on Monday.

Prince Faisal said Sunday that Saudi officials hoped to discuss concrete steps toward creating a Palestinian state during Mr. Blinken’s visit to Riyadh. Calling the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza “a complete failing of the existing political system,” he told a news conference that the kingdom’s government believes that the only solution is “a credible, irreversible pathway to a Palestinian state.”

Before the war started last October, U.S. and Saudi officials were in intense discussions to reach an agreement on the terms of such a proposal. For those negotiators, a big question at the time was what Israel would agree to. Since the war began, the Americans and the Saudis have publicly insisted that Israel must agree to the existence of a Palestinian state.

But Israeli leaders and ordinary citizens have become even more resistant to that idea since the Oct. 7 attacks, in which the Israeli authorities say that Hamas and allied gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took about 240 people as hostages. Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, including thousands of children, say officials from the Gaza health ministry.

Vivian Nereim and Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.

— Edward Wong traveling with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken

Deadly Israeli strikes hit residential buildings in Rafah, Palestinian news media say.

Deadly Israeli airstrikes flattened concrete buildings overnight in the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah, according to news agencies, which published video on Monday of rows of body bags containing what Palestinian officials said were victims of the strikes.

The Reuters news agency said the strikes in Rafah, which Israel seems poised to invade , killed 20 people. The Palestinian news media said the death toll was at least 24. The Gaza Ministry of Health said 34 people were killed in the Gaza Strip during the previous 24 hours, but it did not specify how many of them were killed by the strikes in Rafah.

Asked for comment on the strikes, the Israeli military issued a statement on Monday saying that its “fighter jets struck terror targets where terrorists were operating within a civilian area in southern Gaza.”

More than one million Gazans have been crowding into shelters and tents in Rafah to seek safety from almost seven months of Israel’s military offensive. Israeli officials have said they will soon send ground troops into Rafah, the last Gazan city Israel has not invaded, in order to eliminate Hamas battalions there, an operation that the Biden administration has warned against because of the risk to civilians.

Palestine TV — a channel backed by the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank — said the strikes had hit residential buildings in Rafah. One survivor, carrying a baby she said had been pulled from the rubble, spoke to a Reuters video journalist.

“The entire world is seeing what’s happening to us,” the woman, Umm Fayez Abu Taha, said. She said the child appeared to be uninjured, but that her parents had been killed.

“Look at us with some compassion, with some humanity,” Ms. Abu Taha continued. “This is all we ask for, we’re not asking for much just end the war, nothing more.”

— Liam Stack reporting from Jerusalem

Hamas fires a barrage of rockets into Israel from Lebanon.

Hamas’s military wing said on Monday that it had launched a salvo of rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel, an apparent attempt by the group to signal that it is still capable of striking within Israel’s borders even as it studies the latest proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza.

The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, said in a statement that it had targeted an Israeli military position in Kiryat Shmona, the largest city in Israel’s far north, with a “concentrated rocket barrage” from southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said in a statement that most of the roughly 20 launches that crossed the border had been intercepted, and that it had responded by striking the source of fire. There were no injuries or damage, the military said.

Though Hamas is based in Gaza, many of its leaders are exiled in Lebanon , where the group has a sizable presence and operates largely out of Palestinian refugee camps. Since the Hamas-led terror attack on Oct. 7 prompted Israel to go to war in Gaza, Hamas has occasionally launched rocket attacks into northern Israel from within Lebanon’s borders, though its ally Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, has launched far more. Both groups are backed by Iran. Israel has also targeted Hamas figures in Lebanon in deadly strikes.

Walid al Kilani, Hamas’s spokesman in Lebanon, said the attack was “the minimum duty” given Israel’s continued attacks in Gaza. “We know that Hezbollah is doing its duty and more, but the battlefield requires everyone to participate,” Mr. Kilani said.

The launches on Monday, although muted in their impact, highlighted Hamas’s continuing ability to threaten Israel with rocket fire despite more than 200 days of a devastating Israeli air and ground offensive that has decimated the group’s military capabilities in Gaza.

Mohanad Hage Ali, a Beirut-based fellow with the Carnegie Middle East Center, said the attack was likely an attempt by Hamas to signal that it was “still part of the fight.” While it was largely symbolic, it could also be a means to apply pressure amid the Gaza cease-fire negotiations, he said.

Data compiled by the online website Rocket Alert — which tracks warnings of rocket launches using Israeli military figures — shows that there were just 37 alerts in April in response to detected rocket fire from Gaza, compared to around 7,300 in October at the onset of the war. More than six months into the conflict, the data shows a significant drop-off in the number of warnings of rockets from Gaza.

Alerts indicating rocket fire from Lebanon, however, have remained largely steady, the data shows. Most of those are launched by Hezbollah, but Hamas continues to launch attacks from Lebanon with Hezbollah’s blessing.

Amin Hoteit, a military analyst and former brigadier general in the Lebanese army, said the latest attack was a sign of the “integrated front of operations” among Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups in the region .

Hwaida Saad and Jonathan Rosen contributed reporting.

— Euan Ward reporting from Beirut, Lebanon

Israeli officials believe the International Criminal Court is preparing arrest warrants over the war.

Israeli officials increasingly believe that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants for senior government officials on charges related to the conflict with Hamas, according to five Israeli and foreign officials.

The Israeli and foreign officials also believe the court is weighing arrest warrants for leaders from Hamas.

If the court proceeds, the Israeli officials could potentially be accused of preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and pursuing an excessively harsh response to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, according to two of the five officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

The Israeli officials, who are worried about the potential fallout from such a case, said they believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is among those who might be named in a warrant. It is not clear who might be charged from Hamas or what crimes would be cited.

The Israeli officials did not disclose the nature of the information that led them to be concerned about potential I.C.C. action, and the court did not comment on the matter.

Arrest warrants from the court would probably be seen in much of the world as a humbling moral rebuke, particularly to Israel, which for months has faced international backlash over its conduct in Gaza, including from President Biden , who called it “over the top.”

It could also affect Israel’s policies as the country presses its military campaign against Hamas. One of the Israeli officials said that the possibility of the court issuing arrest warrants had informed Israeli decision-making in recent weeks.

The Israeli and foreign officials said they didn’t know what stage the process was in. Any warrants would require approval from a panel of judges and would not necessarily result in a trial or even the targets’ immediate arrest.

Karim Khan, the court’s chief prosecutor, has previously confirmed that his team is investigating incidents during the war, but his office declined to comment for this article, saying that it does not “respond to speculation in media reports.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s office also would not comment, but on Friday the prime minister said on social media that any intervention by the I.C.C. “would set a dangerous precedent that threatens the soldiers and officials of all democracies fighting savage terrorism and wanton aggression.”

Mr. Netanyahu did not explain what prompted his statement, though he may have been responding to speculation about the arrest warrants in the Israeli press.

He also said: “Under my leadership, Israel will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defense. The threat to seize the soldiers and officials of the Middle East’s only democracy and the world’s only Jewish state is outrageous. We will not bow to it.”

Based in The Hague, the I.C.C. is the world’s only permanent international court with the power to prosecute individuals accused of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The court has no police force of its own. Instead, it relies on its 124 members , which include most European countries but not Israel or the United States, to arrest those named in warrants. It cannot try defendants in absentia .

But warrants from the court can pose obstacles to travel for officials named in them.

The Hamas-led raid last October led to the killing of roughly 1,200 people in Israel and the abductions of some 250 others, according to Israeli officials. The subsequent war in Gaza, including heavy Israeli bombardment, has killed more than 34,000 people, according to Gazan officials, caused widespread damage to housing and infrastructure, and brought the territory to the brink of famine.

The Israeli assault in Gaza has led the International Court of Justice, a separate court in The Hague, to hear accusations of genocide against the Israeli state and has spurred a wave of protests on college campuses in the United States.

If the I.C.C. does issue arrest warrants, they would come with deep stigmatization, placing those named in them in the same category as foreign leaders like Omar al-Bashir, the deposed president of Sudan, and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, who was the subject of a warrant last year tied to his war against Ukraine.

The I.C.C.’s focus on individuals rather than states differentiates it from the International Court of Justice, which settles disputes between states.

The I.C.C. judges have ruled that the court has jurisdiction over Gaza and the West Bank because the Palestinians have joined the court as the State of Palestine.

Mr. Khan has said that his team will be investigating incidents that have occurred since Oct. 7 and that he will be “impartially looking at the evidence and vindicating the rights of victims whether they are in Israel or Palestine.”

Mr. Khan’s office has also been investigating allegations of war crimes committed during the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas; one of the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity believes the new arrest warrants would be an extension of that investigation.

Hamas and the Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment. The office of Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, declined to comment.

In general, Israeli officials say that they fight according to the laws of war and that they take significant steps to protect civilians, accusing Hamas of hiding inside civilian areas and forcing Israel to pursue them there. Hamas has denied committing atrocities on Oct. 7, saying — despite video evidence to the contrary — that its fighters tried to avoid harming civilians.

Marlise Simons , Gabby Sobelman and Myra Noveck contributed reporting.

— Ronen Bergman and Patrick Kingsley The reporters spoke to Israeli and foreign officials.

World Central Kitchen plans to resume working in Gaza.

World Central Kitchen said on Sunday that it would resume operations in Gaza with a local team of Palestinian aid workers, nearly a month after the Israeli military killed seven of the organization’s workers in targeted drone strikes on their convoy.

Israeli military officials have said the attack was a “grave mistake” and cited a series of failures , including a breakdown in communication and violations of the military’s operating procedures.

The Washington-based aid group said that it was still calling for an independent, international investigation into the April 1 attack and that it had received “no concrete assurances” that the Israeli military’s operational procedures had changed. But the “humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire,” the aid group’s chief operating officer, Erin Gore, said in a statement .

“We are restarting our operation with the same energy, dignity, and focus on feeding as many people as possible,” she said.

The aid group said it had distributed more than 43 million meals in Gaza so far and that it had trucks carrying the equivalent of nearly eight million meals waiting to enter the enclave through the Rafah crossing in the south. World Central Kitchen said it was also planning to send trucks to Gaza through Jordan and that it would open a kitchen in Al-Mawasi, a small seaside village that the Israeli military has designated as a “humanitarian zone” safe for civilians, though attacks there have continued.

Six of the seven workers killed on April 1 were from Western nations — three from Britain, one from Australia, one from Poland and one with dual citizenship of the United States and Canada. The seventh was Palestinian. They were killed in back-to-back Israeli drone strikes on their vehicles as they traveled toward Rafah after unloading food aid that had arrived by sea.

The attack prompted World Central Kitchen to immediately suspend its operations in Gaza and elicited outrage from some of Israel’s closest allies.

The World Central Kitchen convoy’s movements had been coordinated in advance with the Israeli military, but some officers had not reviewed the coordination documentation detailing which cars were part of the convoy, the military said.

Some 200 aid workers, most of them Palestinians, were killed in Gaza between Oct. 7 and the attack on the World Central Kitchen convoy, according to the United Nations. A visual investigation by The New York Times showed that, well before the World Central Kitchen attack, six aid groups in Gaza had come under Israeli fire despite sharing their locations with the Israeli military.

The episode forced World Central Kitchen to decide between ending its efforts in Gaza or continuing, “knowing that aid, aid workers and civilians are being intimidated and killed,” Ms. Gore said in the statement.

“Ultimately, we decided that we must keep feeding, continuing our mission of showing up to provide food to people during the toughest of times,” she said.

At a memorial in Washington for the World Central Kitchen workers on Thursday, the group’s founder, the celebrity chef José Andrés, said that there were “many unanswered questions about what happened and why,” and that the aid group was still demanding an independent investigation into the Israeli military’s actions.

The seven aid workers had “risked everything to feed people they did not know and will never meet,” Mr. Andrés said. “They were the best of humanity.”

— Anushka Patil

Arab ministers suggest ways to ‘force peace’ amid Israel’s refusal to recognize a Palestinian state.

At a conference in Saudi Arabia’s capital on Monday, senior diplomats from around the world appeared to agree on one thing: The pathway to a durable peace between Israel and the Palestinians is the creation of a Palestinian state.

But with Israel’s refusal to recognize a Palestinian state, three Arab foreign ministers posited how best to proceed, with Ayman Safadi of Jordan presenting the bluntest proposal among them. The international community, he said, should find a way to “force peace” against the will of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

“If we come up with the best plan ever, and all of us in the international community agree that this is the plan to go forward, and then Netanyahu and his government say no, what happens then?” Mr. Safadi said during a World Economic Forum panel discussion in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, with the foreign ministers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. “Will he face consequences?”

He added, “The party that is responsible for denying Palestinians, Israelis and the whole region peace must be held accountable.”

Israel’s foreign ministry declined to comment, and the prime minister’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Both before and during this war in Gaza, which began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Mr. Netanyahu has rebuffed calls for the creation of a Palestinian state.

Analysts say that the attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and about 240 people taken captive, according to the Israeli authorities, has made it even more unlikely that the Israeli government would agree to such a path. Israeli officials have said that they are trying to eradicate Hamas.

“There is a contrary move, an attempt to force, ram down our throats, a Palestinian state, which will be another terror haven,” Mr. Netanyahu said this month.

Polling shows that a majority of Israelis oppose creating a Palestinian state.

In the Biden administration’s plan for resolving the underlying conflict — and end a war in which Israel’s military has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to officials from the Gazan Health Ministry — it envisions Saudi Arabia agreeing to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel.

In exchange, Saudi Arabia would receive advanced weapons and security guarantees, including a mutual defense treaty from the United States and U.S. commitment for cooperation on a civilian nuclear program in the kingdom .

For its part, Israel would have to commit to the founding of a Palestinian nation, with specific deadlines, U.S. and Saudi officials say.

“In the absence of a real political horizon for the Palestinians, it’s going to be much harder, if not impossible, to really have a coherent plan for Gaza itself,” Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, said on Monday during the conference in Riyadh.

On Sunday at the same event, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said that the only solution was “a credible, irreversible pathway to a Palestinian state.”

He added, “We need to move from talk to action, to concrete steps, and it can’t be left up to the warring parties.”

Prince Faisal implied that diplomats could maneuver around an Israeli refusal, referring to “mechanisms within the toolbox of the international community that can overcome the resistance of any party.”

“If we make that decision, the pathway will unfold before us, even if there are those that will try to stop it,” he said. “There are levers clear, there are levers hidden, that can push us in that direction.”

Mr. Safadi, the Jordanian foreign minister, said that the challenge Arab states had faced while trying to resolve the conflict was that “we don’t have a partner in Israel now.”

“Do we allow Netanyahu to doom the future of the region to more conflict, war and destruction — or do we do what it takes to force peace?” he said.

Speaking on the same panel, Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s foreign minister, said that if the international community made a “categorical” commitment to creating a Palestinian state, there were “points of leverage that can fulfill that requirement.”

“We have the mechanisms, but is there the political will to utilize it?” he asked.

— Vivian Nereim reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

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