The framework agreement announced in June 2023 was supposed to end the war. It did not. What it did was transform an open conflict into a prolonged negotiation — one that has now stretched across two years, produced multiple missed deadlines, and generated enough leaked documents to fill a legal brief.
The core disagreement has never really changed. The PGA Tour wants operational control and a governance structure that keeps the tour's nonprofit status and its relationships with sponsors intact. The Saudi Public Investment Fund wants a return on its investment and a meaningful role in how professional golf is run globally. Those two positions are not obviously compatible.
The players caught in the middle have largely stopped talking publicly about the negotiations. The ones who left for LIV are watching to see whether a deal would allow them to return to major championship eligibility. The ones who stayed on the PGA Tour are watching to see whether the tour they chose is about to change beyond recognition.
The most recent round of talks, according to sources familiar with the discussions, focused on a joint venture structure that would keep the PGA Tour and LIV as separate entities while creating a shared commercial entity for international events and media rights. Whether that structure can satisfy both sides remains unclear.
What is clear is that the talks are not dead. They have survived broken deadlines before and will likely survive more. The question is whether the people in the room have the will to close a deal that neither side will love — which is usually the only kind of deal that actually gets done.
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Julia Velasquez
Julia Velasquez covers golf culture, the LPGA Tour, and the business of the sport for The Par Report.