Scottie Scheffler has blunt message on state of PGA Tour-LIV deal

Scottie Scheffler’s consistency — both on and off the golf course — is admirable.

The top-ranked player in the world is relentless from tee to green. His course-management skills and ability to avoid tournament-altering mistakes have Rory McIlroy and others attempting to emulate the two-time Masters champion’s winning ways.

Scheffler has also never wavered in his position on LIV Golf and why men’s pro golf remains in a constant state of fracture.

“If the fans are upset, then look at the guys that left,” Scheffler said last year at the 2024 Players Championship. “We had a tour, we were all together and the people that left are no longer here. At the end of the day, that’s where the splintering comes from.”

On a pre-Masters conference call with global golf media on Wednesday, Scheffler was asked if he missed playing against all of the top players more than four times a year and was blunt about why the game of golf remains in a state of limbo.

“I definitely miss the competition,” Scheffler said. “They got some pretty good players on their tour. I still think the PGA Tour has by far the best players in the world. The depth of our fields and the competition that we have is still hands down the best competition that there is in the game of golf. That’s why I’m still playing on the Tour. I love the competition. I wish some of those guys had stayed, but at the end of the day, they made their choice. They knew the consequences of that decision, and I’m not here to change their minds. I hold no ill will toward any of those guys that left.

“They did what they wanted to do, and I can’t control their life. I’m not going to sit here and say they should have done something differently. They made their choice. If we want to figure out why the game of golf is not back together, go ask those guys. Go to wherever they are playing this week and figure out when the game is going to come back together.”

Last week at TPC Sawgrass, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan stated the Tour’s desire to reunify the game but parried away all probing questions about the state of negotiations with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) that finances LIV Golf.

Adam Scott, who is part of the PGA Tour’s transaction subcommittee, was a little more forthcoming about the seemingly gridlocked state of the merger talks.

“I think the biggest hangup is in how we see the highest level of competitive golf going forward,” said Scott, the player-director on the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Council, who, along with Monahan, recently met with President Donald Trump to discuss the negotiations. “The product of LIV and the product of the PGA Tour work in very different ways. So I think the challenge is figuring out how that can come together and be really reunification, which is kind of what everyone is shooting for.”

“I think it is part of the stumbling block,” Scott later said about the PGA Tour and LIV having different goals. “The Tour’s being very careful and respectful of everyone and wanting to give everyone, the golf fans and the media and the players, the product that they want. But we’re starting from two different sides of this, so I think it’s hard to find the balance that’s acceptable for everybody. And it also may not be ultimately possible.”

One of the biggest questions in the quest for reunification is how the PGA Tour will reintegrate those who left. It’s fair to assume that all the players who left for LIV won’t want to come back but that the PGA Tour would be quick to re-add the likes of Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith, should they want to return.

Scheffler and Rahm have had their share of duels in the past. The duo have won the last three Masters. They have also faced off in the singles portion of the last two Ryder Cups, with Scheffler winning in 2021 and the two halving their match in 2023.

“One of the great joys of my career is going up against Jon,” Scheffler said on Wednesday. “He’s a tremendous player, tremendous talent. I was definitely surprised to see him leave last year and I for sure miss playing against him. We had some great battles over the years. We had some great battles in the Ryder Cup.

“He’s a great guy to compete against. So, I definitely miss playing against him. I wish we got to do it more often, but I definitely will soak in all the opportunities that I get to compete against him going forward.”

The game of golf will come back together at Augusta National in three weeks. But as far as long-term reunification goes, it could be a long time before the wounds of division are healed in professional golf.