Bourbon and Rye @_bourbonandrye - Twitter Profile

Everyone has been wondering why a deal hasn’t got done between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour. Even me. So, I reached out and my sources told me what’s holding it up and all I can do is shake my head and laugh. We should have known when the same talking points from PGA Tour lackeys started to come out in the last week. It’s all been a variation of “the PGA Tour doesn’t need a deal”. The usual suspects (they dimwittedly parrot what they are told my Tour insiders) have all been the same. Here’s the sticking point: Yasir Al-Rumayyan is not going to give control of LIV Golf’s fate to the PGA Tour just to get a deal. The Tour thought it had a stronger hand and they don’t. The naively thought they could get President Trump to side with them and force Al-Rumayyan to cave. Al- Rumayyan is always going to have the final say on what happens to LIV. Anyone paying attention and who watches and listens to Jared Kushner knows he is still quietly working behind the scenes on the Middle East and regularly text messages MBS. When talking about the role of the Saudis in Trump’s peace plan, Kushner said, "The agreement with Saudi Arabia will be the key". If you recall, the Framework agreement was written so LIV Golf would be studied. It said, “NewCo will undertake a full and objective empirical data-driven evaluation of LIV and its prospects and potential and will make a good faith assessment of the benefits of team golf in general, and PIF, the PGA TOUR and the DP World Tour will work together in an effort to determine how best to integrate team golf into PGA TOUR and DP World Tour events going forward”. Well, guess what? Al-Rumayyan doesn’t intend to see LIV’s teams integrated into TGL or some other relegation. He’s not going to watch everything they’ve built get thrown out by Tour execs that want LIV to disappear. Golf is a big part of the Saudis plan to transform their country and their investment to date is worth every penny in the big picture. They are smart to make golf a central pillar of their vision. LIV Golf is too far along now and what makes most sense if for LIV Golf and The PGA Tour to co-exist and let players go back and forth if they can fit it into their calendars. It’s really that simple. PGA Tour leadership doesn’t understand that President Trump isn’t going to hurt LIV Golf for a lot of reasons. He’s has friendships on both sides and true to form, he’s not going to force any friends into a bad position unless there’s a very compelling reason. Anyone notice how Elon Musk’s arch enemy, Sam Altman was standing in the Oval Office with Larry Ellison, even though Elon is extremely close to Trump? Screwing over Yasir Al-Rumayyan and the Saudis is not high on Trump’s list because he needs them and supports them for much bigger and more important things. The PGA Tour has been making unreasonable demands for a deal to get done and Al-Rumayyan isn’t going to budge on key points. They don’t need to and no one can force them to. That’s why we haven’t seen a deal get done.