Three Years After the Riyadh Handshake: Professional Golf Still Searching for a New Order

On June 6, 2026, a statement fewer than two hundred words long was published simultaneously at PGA Tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced they would merge their commercial operations into a single entity. Only hours earlier, lawyers on both sides had still been finalizing filings for an antitrust hearing. Rory McIlroy, who had inadvertently become the spokesman for the traditionalist camp, told reporters he felt like "a sacrificial lamb."

Three years later, I sit in Brisbane, reopening my old notes, and what stops me is not the shock of that year. It is the long silence that followed. The historic handshake remains unfinished to this day.

A Market Split in Two

To understand the present, we have to go back to June 2026. LIV Golf staged its first event at Centurion Club in Hertfordshire, England, with prize purses reaching 25 million USD per tournament and signing bonuses worth hundreds of millions. Behind it stood PIF, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. Within two years, LIV had drawn in nearly every name capable of selling tickets: Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, and in December 2026, Jon Rahm.

The PGA Tour responded by raising purses, launching "Signature Events" with elite fields, and tightening eligibility. The conflict escalated into a spending war. But one detail was rarely mentioned: both sides were drawing money from the same audience, through the same broadcast and sponsorship contracts. They were not enlarging the pie — they were only re-dividing it.

The Choke Point Is the Ranking

In October 2026, the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) board refused to award points to LIV events. The stated reasons were technical: the team format, the absence of a 36-hole cut, and a level of competition insufficient for fair comparison with traditional events. As an argument, it held up.

But the consequences were something else entirely. A golfer playing for LIV no longer accumulates OWGR points, and therefore steadily loses the chance to enter the four majors. This is the crux that many outsiders overlook. OWGR's real power lies not in whom it ranks, but in the fact that the majors use it as a gateway. The Masters, the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open and The Open all draw their qualification criteria from this ranking to determine their fields. When OWGR shuts the door, LIV is cut off from the long-term path to prestige. Money can buy a roster, but it cannot buy history.

In the other direction, the PGA Tour has not escaped the pressure either. On January 31, 2026, it announced an agreement with Strategic Sports Group, an investment consortium led by Fenway Sports Group, committing up to 3 billion USD. It was the first time the PGA Tour accepted private capital entering its ownership structure. In other words, both sides had to compromise their own founding principles.

Then, on December 6, 2026, the USGA and the R&A announced a new ball rule, limiting flight distance for elite competition from 2028 and for recreational players from around 2030. It was a purely technical decision, but it landed right as the money war was hottest. Nobody wanted to say it plainly, but both systems feared that a shorter-flying ball would reduce the appeal of the product they were bidding up.

In January 2026, TGL launched — an indoor, simulator-based golf league played in a team format. It is an experiment in capital and format, not a traditional tournament. It reveals what investors are thinking: if 72-hole golf on grass no longer has growth headroom, then sell a different format — tighter, faster, and more accessible to younger viewers.

Behind the Curtain: The Human Body

Over the past three years, both systems have faced the same pressure: an overcrowded schedule. I have tracked consecutive tournament weeks in which a top golfer had to cross three time zones within seven days, from the U.S. East Coast to Europe and back. No name — whether on the PGA Tour or LIV — escapes this effect.

The PGA Tour tries to build a more sustainable schedule by reducing the number of events its stars are required to play. LIV chose the opposite path: fewer events, but with denser intensity and media obligations. In sports-medicine terms, these are two roads leading to the same point. No medical team can save a body compressed into two elite golf tournaments in a single week. Wrists, lower backs and knees are the silent protagonists of every news item, and the real reason some big names withdraw from the most anticipated events.

At 65, I have seen more than a few young golfers pushed to the summit and broken within two seasons. In my eyes, the schedule is not a backstage matter. It is the variable no tournament dares touch, because it is tied directly to revenue.

The Contrarian View

Analysts usually call this "the PGA Tour versus LIV war." I do not think so. Seen structurally, what opposes both sides is not the rival, but the legitimacy of the ranking system and the four majors. OWGR invests not a cent and owns not a single golf course, yet it is the most powerful force in the sport.

If I reverse the argument — suppose PIF withdrew entirely tomorrow — the basic structure would not change. The PGA Tour would still face the question of the schedule, the ball, and player exhaustion. LIV is only a symptom of a long-standing illness, not the cause. This argument holds in both directions, and that is why I believe it stands firmer than the "two camps at war" narrative.

I remind myself of this every time I sit down to write. In 2026, I once believed in a story too perfect at the World Cup and crumbled when it broke right before my eyes. That lesson holds me back: never tell an ending before it happens.

What to Watch

Entering 2026, the major season keeps its old rhythm: Augusta in April, the PGA Championship in May, the U.S. Open in June and The Open in July. But the question is no longer who will win, the PGA Tour or LIV. The real question is whether golf can find a system transparent enough to give its players back the right to compete on a common ground.

A sport needs a measure. And that measure must stand outside anyone's pocket — whether that someone is an American media conglomerate or a sovereign wealth fund. When the measure is bought, the sport does not lose its competitiveness. It loses its legitimacy.

An empty golf course, but the applause still echoes in me — the applause of those still waiting for an answer.