And the winner is …
Golf.
Golf and its fans around the globe who’ve grown tired of the hypocrisy that has divided the sport with the PGA Tour, threatened by LIV Golf and banning players who jumped to the Saudi-backed tour, now get to see the best players compete against each other more than in only the four major championships.
The player bans will be lifted by the PGA Tour and DP World Tour and the players will now be able to play the against each other in the biggest events — not the least of which includes the Ryder Cup, the sport’s most polarizing and popular competition.
Good for golf.
Not so good for PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who looks like a stooge in this after spending the better part of the past two years playing the tough guy, morally outraged by the Saudi money that he saw as a threat to his tour, and banning players who departed for it.
Just months after Monahan denounced the players who signed on for eight- and nine-figure money deals with LIV, he’s slipped under the covers into bed with the very tour he excoriated and, after making that news public with Tuesday’s shocking announcement, he declared this: “The tension’s gone.’’
Golf fans are the winners regarding this PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger, but PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan comes off looking like a stooge, The Post’s Mark Cannizzaro writes.USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con Anyone who doesn’t see that as one of the most Pollyanna statements ever made in the sport will argue that Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods aren’t the best players ever to play the game.
Monahan and the PGA Tour sold out. They caved under the immense pressure of the Saudis’ endless supply of money in what became a quintessential “if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em’’ moment.
And, in doing so, he hung out to dry the highest-profile players who backed him most and stayed loyal in the fight against LIV Golf (hello, Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods).
Monahan also did dirty to the players who were offered huge money from LIV Golf and opted to remain with the PGA Tour. It’s impossible for the likes of McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay and Cameron Young — some of the PGA Tour’s young stars to name only a few who were offered countless millions by LIV and stayed — not to feel betrayed by Monahan and the PGA Tour.
Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, a global star who was considered a huge target for LIV, turned down nine-figure millions to remain with the PGA Tour.
Everything to know about the PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger
PGA Tour and LIV Golf are ending a war — by joining forces.
The two golf leagues, along with the European DP World Tour, are merging into one company after a period of fierce rivalry, one where LIV Golf defectors were banned from competing on the Tour.
LIV, financed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund and led by legendary golfer Greg Norman, lured some of the top names in golf last year with reported nine-figure contracts, including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau.
Other huge golf names, however, like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, stayed loyal to the Tour, despite being offered a massive amount of money.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger
Norman said last year Woods turned down a payday in the range of $700 million-$800 million to stick with the PGA Tour.
With the merger, the Saudi-backed LIV and the Tour are ending an antitrust battle and agreed to end all litigation between the two sides.
“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “This transformational partnership recognizes the immeasurable strength of the PGA TOUR’s history, legacy and pro-competitive model.”
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Those players, all of whom learned about this stunning merger via social media on Tuesday as Monahan and Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) that oversees LIV Golf, sat in a staged CNBC studio looking like a couple of long-lost college rivals awkwardly aching to become chums and break bread together.
So much for the Player Advisory Council (PAC) and Monahan’s constant claims that the PGA Tour is a tour run by its players. That, of course, has been further exposed as a total sham.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay MonahanAPDespite the human-nature resentment that’s sure to be prevalent at the moment, however, those resentments will wear off as the players begin to benefit from the billions of Saudi dollars that will be pumped into a PGA Tour that already had made so many of its rich richer.
Despite players’ noses being bent out of shape, once the mega-checks begin clearing, the acrimony will dissipate and they’ll realize that they’re winners just like the fans are.
From the start of this LIV Golf moment, I’ve been adamant that the division in the sport created by the banning of players by the PGA Tour and DP World Tour was bad for the game and worse for the fans, and that the chatter about the “blood money’’ the LIV players were taking from the Saudis was riddled with hypocrisy considering the fact that all the top pro golf tours were already doing business with the Saudis.
This was never a battle on the golf courses, it was a battle in the boardrooms. And in the end, the Saudis’ money won over the boardroom battle. Now the best players can battle the way they should on the same golf courses during the same weeks.
That might be bad for Monahan and the PGA Tour because it looks like they caved, but it’s good for the golf fans.
And that’s all that should matter now.
