While talks between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which backs breakaway tour LIV Golf. reportedly have been making some headway recently.
But there’s at least one stumbling block between the two groups and bringing the two rival tours together — and it’s worth roughly $300 million US.
According to a Bloomberg report, some PGA Tour players want Jon Rahm and other golfers who made the jump to LIV Golf to give back the money they earned from the breakaway tour.
The Spanish golf star reportedly received $300 million for making the jump to the LIV Golf last December, which was seen as a major coup for the Saudi-backed league. Rahm also recently won the tour’s season points title, earning an additional $18-million bonus.
The conditions for how the players who opted to join LIV Golf – often for massive signing bonuses – can rejoin the PGA Tour has become a major sticking point in negotiations. Bloomberg reports that it could mean that the two sides failed to reach an agreement.
Some other ideas that have been pitched to reintegrate LIV Golf players include having them pay fines to enter events, donate to charity or agree to forfeit future winnings while on the PGA Tour, the outlet reports.
However, players who joined LIV Golf refuse to budge on the concept of having to pay a penalty for leaving the PGA Tour.
Rahm has previously said that he wouldn’t pay fines to the DP World Tour for breaking the European-based organization’s rules about participating in competing events.
During the Open Championship in Scotland earlier this summer, Tiger Woods provided a glimmer of hope that the world’s best golfers could see each other more than just four times a year.
The 15-time major champion said he is happy with the direction of negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund that bankrolls LIV Golf.
“I can tell you we’re making progress,” Woods said. “I can’t tell you more than that just because we’re not going to negotiate on the outside.
“We’ve got to keep everything at a high level and private, but things are moving and things are changing. It’s evolving each and every day. There’s e-mails and chains and texts and ideas that we bounce back and forth from both sides.”
However, with this latest news following last week’s negotiations in New York City — which involved the PGA Tour board, but none of the players on it — an agreement may still be quite far off.
Another sticking point includes whether PGA Tour players would agree to play in events outside of North America, something they haven’t been willing to do in the past.