MEMPHIS, Tenn. – In the world of professional golf, June 6 is whispered about in hushed tones as the day everything changed.
At 10 a.m. (ET) on June 6, the PGA Tour announced its landmark framework agreement with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia following months of legal vitriol and public hyperbole between the two sides. According to multiple accounts, the circuit’s senior staff was informed about the deal at 9:30 a.m. and most players learned of the deal only after it was made public.
There’s no shortage of mulligans the Tour would gladly take to revisit the agreement’s clunky rollout – a list that likely goes back to the earliest vestiges of what would become LIV Golf – but if the circuit’s commissioner, Jay Monahan, had one do-over it would be the rushed and secretive nature of the announcement.