Six months ago, things were different. At least they felt different. Jay Monahan was the leader of the PGA Tour and working through negotiations with the Saudi Public Investment Fund on a potential investment of at least $1.5 billion.
Monahan, in mid-March, was not yet ready to surrender his role as Tour-head, and instead moved forward with his state of the union press conference at the Players Championship. He sat in front of assembled media at TPC Sawgrass and offered many words that amounted to very little. He refused to add any depth to the negotiations — which took place at the White House and did not end amicably. Amid his many non-answers, I squeezed in a question that wasn’t so much about the PGA Tour, but rather the company it was trying to attract.
As the commissioner of the Tour, I began, you make a couple annual press conferences, but as the governor of the [Saudi] PIF, Yasir [Al-Rumayyan] does not. As someone who has had numerous meetings with him that you call very real, can you help us understand what he seeks most in a potential investment?
Monahan’s answer was one of respectful deference: “Listen, no surprise to you, I’m a hundred percent focused on the PGA Tour and focused on everything that I control. I think that’s a question for [Yasir] to answer, not for me to answer.”
He wasn’t wrong. But he also just wasn’t realistic. Because Al-Rumayyan rarely speaks on the record, he certainly doesn’t conduct press conferences, and has amounted mostly to a shadow figure in the sport.
In the months since the Players Championship, Monahan has faded to the background of Tour leadership and been replaced by Brian Rolapp, the new CEO, who may or may not be tasked with reviving those negotiations — which hit an aggressive snag. When asked about LIV in his only press conference last month, Rolapp spoke as generically as Monahan.
“I will also say that to the extent we can do anything that’s going to further strengthen the PGA Tour, we’ll do that,” Rolapp said. “I’m interested in exploring whatever strengthens the PGA Tour.”
My original question remains, partly because it was never answered in the first place. But also because of how little Al-Rumayyan speaks publicly. (He’ll sit on stage at an event here and there for largely softball questions.) He loves playing LIV Golf pro-ams and taking in Newcastle United football matches. But questions are rarely, if ever, lobbed at him without his being briefed on them. (And that is very likely to continue.)
HOWEVER — and this may be one of the weakest howevers — Al-Rumayyan did something different this week. The financial backer of LIV Golf spent Monday in Washington D.C. — after spending the weekend in New York, with President Trump, taking in the U.S. Open — doing a 48-minute interview, on the record, at the Economic Club, on various investment topics. LIV Golf was among them, along with Saudi investment strategy, the 2034 World Cup, Middle East tourism and more. And even if the golf questions — asked by David Rubenstein, founder of the private equity firm, Carlyle Group — were rather simple, perhaps that’s a good thing. Because one of them eventually answered partly of what I asked Monahan.
What follows is a synopsis of Al-Rumayyan’s thoughts, trimmed down for golf-focused analysis.
What does ‘LIV’ actually stand for?
Often this question is answered by the simple explanation that LIV tournaments are played out over 54 holes, and LIV is the roman numeral for 54. While the connection is accurate, the meaning of LIV — perhaps its existential meaning — is different.
LIV is indeed 54, but not necessarily the amount of holes — rather the pursuit of perfection.
“That’s why we say we want to get golf to the next level, which is 54 strokes,” Al-Rumayyan said, insinuating that LIV could nudge the sport closer to its ceiling. What does that look like?
Golf fans may recall how Al-Rumayyan triumphantly promised during the first ever LIV event that any LIV golfer who shot 54 in a round would receive a $54 million check. Well, he doubled down on that message again Monday, even more giddy than when he first said it in June 2022.
“It’s going to be one of my most happiest days if we achieve that,” Al-Rumayyan said, saying he hopes it happens. “Because I’ll go back to my insurance company and ask them to pay for it.”
Will the Saudi PIF strike a deal with the PGA Tour?
Kudos to Rubenstein for the directness of this question. When there wasn’t a direct answer, well, that’s an answer in itself.
Instead, Al-Rumayyan’s response revolved around the tendency of golf fans — TV watchers, ticket buyers, etc. — to be golfers themselves. Few sports around the world employ a greater connection between the professional ranks and the recreational hobby.
“What I want is to bring golf to the non-golfers,” Al-Rumayyan said. “Just like football, just like tennis, or Formula 1. How many people have driven a Formula 1 car? But at the same time, you have millions of people who are watching Formula 1. I want to have the same thing for golf.”
In other words, it sounds like Al-Rumayyan wants to create an ecosystem within the game that transacts on the popularity of the recreational side of the sport while using its professional branches. And frankly, that seems to check out with LIV’s actions, paying exorbitant funds to top talent to create a league of its own with a different, Formula 1-style format. (To say nothing of its extremely Formula 1-styled broadcast, fan villages, etc.)
“I’m looking forward for the day to work with the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour,” Al-Rumayyan continued. “We reached out to them from Day 1. And unfortunately, things didn’t go very well. But hopefully in the future we will be able to bring the game of golf together and this — I mean, what I’m trying to do is not to claw back from the PGA or the DP World Tour. What I’m trying to do is increase the size of the pot.”
It would have been great to hear him say those words, in a very public setting, about 2 or 2.5 years ago. Instead, golf fans have had to search for clues and meaning on their own. The negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Saudi PIF reached a point where the PIF would be considered an investor in the Tour along the lines of the Strategic Sports Group, a collective of American sports executives who pledged at least $1.5 to the Tour in January 2024. SSG has been deeply involved in Tour operations in the months since. Al-Rumayyan, however, has continued tending to his many responsibilities, giving golf fans the sense that an investment may actually never happen.
His comments Monday make it sound much more plausible than any of the silence of the last six months.
How about that round with Tiger Woods? And Donald Trump?
Al-Rumayyan admitted that he’s played golf with most of the top players on either side of pro golf’s civil war, including Tiger Woods and his son Charlie. That round is likely the one that took place between Woods and Al-Rumayyan in April 2024 in the Bahamas. In a moment of levity, Rubenstein asked if Woods is overrated or “really pretty good”. Al-Rumayyan took that baton, paused and then quipped, “Eh, he’s ok.”
Al-Rumayyan also admitted to gaming it against President Trump. When Rubinstein asked whose game is better, Al-Rumuyyan’s or Trump’s, the LIV Golf head joked, “I think that’s a state secret.”
As someone who has seen both play up close, the true answer is Trump, though Al-Rumayyan is certainly improving.
Clearly not all about financial return
Al-Rumayyan said PIF’s total worth currently fluctuates between $925 and $930 billion, and the goal by the end of 2025 is $1.075 trillion. The PIF portfolio includes businesses in 14 different sectors, of which “Entertainment, Leisure and Sports” is the likely home for LIV Golf.
But what does LIV do as an investment for the PIF?
It’s not entirely clear, because of the quantifiable metrics, the adolescent golf league is a considerable money drag. The total investment was anticipated to possibly reach $5 billion by the end of 2025, figures of which will not be official until early 2026. But as has long been at the forefront of any conversation about LIV is the less-quantifiable topic of Sportswashing. The country has faced serious allegations of using sport investment to distract, or launder, its brutal human rights reputation. You can’t measure that on an excel sheet, but it is worth thinking about as Al-Rumayyan responds to Rubenstein’s simple question:
“Is the rate of return the most important thing?”
“It’s a number of things,” Al-Rumayyan said. “It’s a matrix. Returns is very important, but why are we doing certain investment in a certain sector? Is there a GDP contribution? Is there job creation? Is there help in our local content, which is very important. How can we diversify from oil?”
He proceeded to discuss how the Saudi GDP has been diversified immensely away from dependence on oil, which was as high as 90% of the economy a decade ago.
“The financial returns are coming with high degree of certainty but what is the impact?” he asked aloud. “What is the — are you an impactful investor? That’s part of our vision and mission within PIF, to be an impactful investor. What’s the definition of that? It’s to make money, of course, to help in the prosperity and achieve in Vision 2030’s major KPIs and to develop the country. Saudi Arabia had so many gaps in many things prior to 2015, and what we wanted to do is basically bridge these gaps.”
LIV Golf would certainly not count as an investment with impactful financial return. It could (and likely is) something else. Another example: the PIF has invested in the ATP Tour (the men’s tennis tour), earning a naming right to the ATP Rankings, which do not bring any financial return to the PIF. But the PIF ATP Rankings do increase the name recognition for the country in the greater sports ecosystem.
It’s okay to take it all … with a grain of salt
You can watch the entire Al-Rumayyan interview below. It is noteworthy for its rarity. He has simply not given many on the record conversations of this length, in this American setting … period. His answers are rosy and optimistic and, when discussing the depths of investment Saudi Arabia is making in the U.S., across the world and in any number of industries, it’s easy to understand why golf may not always be at the top of his list. It is also easy to understand — when he gloats incorrectly about the Saudi Pro Football League being one of the four best soccer leagues in the world — that his view of the leagues funded by Saudi money is disconnected from reality.
Check out the video below. The golf conversation begins at the 20-minute mark:
