President Trump gathered this week with the PGA Tour Commissioner, the Tour said Thursday, because the Ministry of Justice is considering whether a company between the most important golf circuit of the United States should be approved and a supported by the sovereine Wealth Fund of Sudaedi -Arabia .
The White House meeting on Tuesday was an unusual trip for an American president in global sports diplomacy, but celebrated squared with his decades of ambitions to perform as a sports broker. It was also the newest expression from his proximity to Liv Golf, the Tour supported by Saudi.
In addition to the PGA Tour Commissioner, Jay Monahan, Mr. Trump organized Adam Scott, who in 2013 won the Masters tournament and is on the board of the PGA Tour.
During the Oval Office meeting, Mr. Trump also spoke by telephone with Yasir al-Rahalyyan, the governor of the Saudi asset fund and one of the most influential figures in Saudi Arabia, according to two people who are familiar with the session about the Condition of anonymity to describe the private interviews.
“We asked the president to participate in the well -being of the game, the well -being of the country and for all countries involved,” said Mr. Monahan, Mr. Scott and Tiger Woods in a joint statement on Thursday afternoon after the New York Times asked the meeting on Wednesday evening. “We are grateful that his leadership has brought us closer to a definitive deal, so that the road is released for reuniting professional wave of men.”
Mr. Woods, the most celebrated player of his generation and another member of the tour of the Tour, was planned to participate, but did not participate because of his mother's death, according to one of the people who informed the meeting .
Mr. Woods's agent did not respond to a request for comments. The power fund did not comment.
Since Liv thundered the professional golf scene on the professional golf scene three years ago, Mr. Trump, stabbed by distanting the professional golf company of him after his access to politics, one of the most steadfast supporters and one of the most essential suppliers.
His company has organized LIV tournaments on courses up and down along the east coast – The circuit is planned to return to Trump National Doral, near Miami – and Mr Trump has been a regular presence. While he played in Liv's professional amateur matches, he would in a routine way to denigrate the PGA Tour and his rival and his Saudi customers praise everyone who would listen.
Now Mr. Trump as something of a mediator for the prestigious American tour and the Saudi start that felt legions of no -sayers to become a power in sport. On Wednesday, the organizer of the US Open announced a smoother path for LIV players to compete at the event, one of the four most important tournaments of the sport.
Only two years ago such a détente seemed unlikely. The PGA Tour and Liv had spent 2022 and the first months of 2023 with bitter opportunities, while the Saudi competition enters to sign established stars for some of the most lucrative deals in sports history. LIV encouraged the Ministry of Justice to investigate the PGA Tour for possible violations of the antitrust legislation, and the Tour spent months denouncing LIV and its Saudi financiers.
But in June 2023, after about two months of secret conversations that extend from San Francisco to Venice, the Tour and Liv announced a plan to try to combine their companies. The provisional agreement led to a truce in their collision about power, money and morality in global sports.
However, the two parties have to close one last deal. Federal antitrust officials have assessed a term magazine that the wealth fund has called to place $ 1.5 billion in a commercial arm that created the PGA Tour and a group of top -amese sports investors.
Officials of the Ministry of Justice are mainly tailored to the question of whether LIV and the PGA Tour, whose tournaments differ in format and length, are direct rivals and whether a deal could suppress competition in the United States.
In December Mr. Woods said that the conversations were 'very fluent', although he also described them as 'constructive'.
Mr. Trump, an avid golfer, has for years a sort of deal for predicting between the PGA Tour and Liv. But even while he enjoyed rounds with top players, Mr. Trump had a complex relationship with the American Golfelite in recent years.
The PGA Tour, which used to be events in the Trump building in Doral, FLA. Held his relationship with Mr Trump's company during the 2016 campaign. Tim Finchem, who was the Tour Commissioner at the time, said that the move was not a “political exercise”, but “fundamentally a sponsor problem.”
Mr. Trump also had a special fall-out with the PGA of America, who after the January 6, 2021 took his men's championship tournament from a Trump course, riot in the Capitol. The Trump organization and the group, which differs from the PGA Tour, later reached a settlement.
Shortly after his election in November, Mr. Trump indicated his constant interest in the fate of the negotiations of professional wave. As President-Elect, Mr. Trump organized Mr. Monahan for a Golf of Golf at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, FLA. The next day he saw Mr Al-Rahayyan at an event in New York.
In November asked if Mr. Trump might be able to break the Logjam, Rory Mcilroy, one of the world's top players, replied, “He might be able to.”
“It is clear that Trump has a great relationship with Saudi Aarabia,” Mr. McIlroy added, a former member of the PGA Tour board who played with Mr Trump in 2017. “He has a great relationship with Golf. He is a golf enthusiast. So maybe. Who knows? But I think he as President of the United States has bigger things to focus than golf.”
But for at least a short time on Tuesday, the day that he publicly ran an American takeover of Gaza, Mr. Trump was strongly focused on Golf.
