The long-simmering feud between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf has now reached the two-and-a-half-year mark, and as both tours turn the page to 2025, it’s becoming clear that there is no end in sight.
When commissioner Jay Monahan announced the 2025 PGA Tour schedule ahead of the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August, it featured 39 tournaments but showed no room for any kind of deal or merger with LIV Golf. At the time, Monahan agreed with that assessment, saying, “I think that’s fair.”
On Tuesday night, LIV Golf made a schedule announcement of its own, revealing the first four events of what it called in a press release its “third official full season.”
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The season-opener, LIV Golf Riyadh, will kick off February 6 at Riyadh Golf Club, followed one week later by LIV Golf Adelaide (Feb. 14-16) at Grange Golf Club in Australia.
Two weeks later LIV heads to Hong Kong Golf Club for LIV Golf Hong Kong from March 7-9, before skipping over to Sentosa Golf Club the next week for LIV Golf Singapore (March 14-16).
Included in the press release was a statement from LIV CEO Greg Norman that displayed a confident outlook in LIV’s future and no mention of any merger with the PGA Tour.
“As we set our sights on 2025, LIV Golf is gearing up for our most ambitious season start, to date,” Norman said in the press release. “Since our debut in 2022, LIV Golf has played 34 tournaments in nine different countries across four continents. We are a global league with a global footprint, and we’re excited to kick off next season with four truly international events that will deliver our unique blend of elite golf, entertainment and culture to fans around the world.”
It was eerily similar to Monahan’s own message in August when announcing the PGA Tour schedule, though he did at least mention negotiations with the Public Investment Fund, which finances LIV.
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“There’s tremendous momentum [on the PGA Tour]. I think that’s reflected in the energy you see coming in the Playoffs, the ’25 schedule, and we’ve seen and continue to see a lot more innovation,” Monahan said at the FedEx St. Jude, “and certainly the conversations with the Public Investment Fund are an important part of the journey that we’re on this year and that we’ll continue to be on.”
Neither provided any hope to golf fans sick of the fighting and anxious for an official end to the feud, one the golf world thought was imminent when the two sides announced the Framework Agreement in June of 2023.
But after a brief denouement following that agreement, players have continued switching tours, hot takes have continued to fly from leading figures in the game, the deadline for a final deal came and went last December and no noticeable progress has been made in negotiations.
Furthermore, when we put the tours’ 2025 schedules side-by-side, it becomes clear that the competition between the two sides is still brewing on the course.
All four of the 2025 LIV events that have been announced occur the same week as major PGA Tour events.
LIV Golf Riyadh will be played the same week as the popular WM Phoenix Open, and the very next week LIV Golf Adelaide will occur at the same time as the Genesis Invitational, a Signature Event hosted by Tiger Woods.
The week of March 9 will see another PGA Tour Signature Event, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, go up against LIV Golf Hong Kong. When LIV Golf Singapore kicks off the following week, the Players Championship — the biggest Tour event of them all — will be underway at TPC Sawgrass.
So while negotiations appear to have ground to a halt, both LIV Golf and the PGA Tour are forging ahead into the murky future independently.
