Professional golf’s current reunification stalemate has everyone offering their opinion on what the future of the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and the pro ecosystem as a whole should look like.
Players like Rory McIlroy see the long-term value of bringing the game together and putting hurt feelings aside for the good of the sport. Others on the PGA Tour still want returning LIV defectors to pay a price for leaving their tour and fracturing the sport. Some don’t want to play with those who left at all.
You can count 2009 U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover in the latter category.
Speaking on his SiriusXM PGA Tour radio show on Tuesday, Glover discussed his feelings on potentially welcoming back those who left the PGA Tour. Glover noted that there is his personal way of thinking about the situation and how the PGA Tour as a whole ought to think about the stalled negotiations.
His thoughts were clear.
“I don’t want to play with them, me personally,” Glover said. “I don’t think they should be back here. I don’t want them here. They made their decision. I don’t blame any of them. They made a decision, I don’t care, but they also went away from this tour and chose to. As a PGA Tour player and somebody that dreamed of playing on the PGA Tour, and have poured my heart and soul into this Tour and game for 21 seasons now, I don’t want somebody that chose another path and a path of less resistance. I don’t want them back here competing and taking part of my pie and these kids’ pie that are trying to make it now. I don’t want that.
“Now, we as a group. We as golf fans. We as golf everything. Yeah, the top four, five, six players over there, if they were playing on the PGA Tour, would benefit all of us because our TV deal in 2030 would be great, would be bigger, would be X, Y, Z. So that’s the big question right now in my opinion is: Does it behoove all of us as Tour members, who have equity now, to grow our sport by brining some of those guys back? I’m having a hard time with it.”
Glover noted that he has been told to take his emotions out of the equation. As we have discovered over the last three years, that is easier said than done.
“It’s still very hard for me,” Glover said about not letting his emotions play a role. “This is still my dream and I chose to stay, and after I chose to stay I had success. As far as the stalemate, we being the PGA Tour now, I don’t think we even care. I think we are focused on going forward. So they are not coming off the team thing, and that’s fine. Our focus now is forward, forward, forward. We’re going to grow our sport. We’re going to grow our sport. We’re going to grow golf through the PGA Tour, which is how it has always been and always should have been. All I’m saying is I don’t think we care anymore about this unification and I don’t think they do either.”
It has been over two years since the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced the Framework Agreement. There seemed to be positive momentum toward a deal in February after a meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump, but tones changed in early March, and there has been no progress on the reunification front since.
That’s alright with Glover, who, like so many others on the PGA Tour, is ready to move forward with or without a deal.
