Tiger Woods Says PGA Tour Doesn't Need Saudi PIF Money but Deal Could Still Happen

LOS ANGELES — Saying he doesn’t believe the newly formed PGA Tour Enterprises needs help from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia in the wake of a recently announced deal with a private equity company, Tiger Woods did not dismiss the possibility of working out a deal with the backer of the LIV Golf League.

Woods spoke publicly for the first time Wednesday since the PGA Tour announced plans two weeks ago that will see the Strategic Sports Group invest nearly $3 billion in a new for-profit entity, with players getting equity shares. He had a news conference at Riviera Country Club, where he is playing his first event of 2024 at the Genesis Invitational, which begins Thursday.

The deal came about in the wake of the June 6 announcement of a framework agreement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Public Investment Fund, which had a Dec. 31 deadline and has yet to be completed.

Tiger Woods is on the PGA Tour policy board but says he has not met Saudi Arabia PIF chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan. Ben Jared/Getty Images

“Well, the PIF deal obviously is ongoing,” Woods said. “SSG, we have solidified our agreement with them and PIF is still ongoing and we’re still negotiating.”

Later, he said: “Ultimately we would like to have PIF be a part of our Tour and a part of our product. Financially, we don’t right now, and the monies that they have come to the table with and what we initially had agreed to in the framework agreement, those are all the same numbers.

“Anything beyond this is going to be obviously over and above. We’re in a position right now, hopefully we can make our product better in the short term and long term.”

Woods, 48, who became a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board last summer following the surprising framework agreement announcement, gave no specifics as to what the new PGA Tour Enterprises would look like going forward.

He said he’s never spoken with anyone from the PIF, including governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who was slated to be the chairman of the board of the new for-profit company in the original framework agreement documents.

Asked if he knew the PIF’s goals in this process, Woods said: “From what their representatives have discussed with us, yes and no, because that changes and that evolves from a few months ago to what it is currently now. … I don’t know if it’s good or bad, it’s an ongoing, fluid process.”

The game remains divided as the PGA Tour and LIV Golf play separate schedules with no crossover among the players aside from the major championships.

LIV Golf has three of the past five major champions—Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm and Cam Smith—as well as other top players.

Bringing them back together is proving to be a complicated issue. Board members Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott said two weeks ago they didn’t necessarily believe PIF investment was necessary; Rory McIlroy said he’d like to see LIV players welcomed back without penalty; others are against that idea.

“We’re looking into all the different models for pathways back,” Woods said. “What that looks like, what the impact is for the players who have stayed and who have not left and how we make our product better going forward, there is no answer to that right now.

“We’re looking at a very different—varying degrees of ideas and what that looks like in the short term, we don’t know. We don’t even know in the longer term what that looks like. Trust me, there’s daily, weekly emails and talks about this and what this looks like for our Tour going forward.”

LIV Golf’s business model is based on team golf, although each tournament also pays an individual purse.

The league has 13 four-man teams that are basically locked, and the plan has always been to sell those teams, with LIV Golf recouping 75% of the sale price. The team captains have been given 25% equity.

How that could fit into PGA Tour Enterprises is unclear, it at all.

“How team golf is … it’s going to be a part of the Tour. It is part of the Tour, we had TGL (Tomorrow Golf League, the simulator team series that was put on hold a year),” Woods said. “What that looks like as far as (an) official event goes, we don’t know what that looks like yet as of now. As far as off one‑night events, what TMRW golf league provides, it is going to be entertaining. Whether or not we can transform that or—put that together with official open events, that’s one of the reasons we have SSG to be a part of what that can possibly look like or how does that even look like or how does that even look like with our PIF negotiations as well.”