Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund are reportedly eager to throw a major spanner in the works of men’s professional golf’s reconciliation efforts.
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The LIV Golf backers, who have been in merger negotiations with the PGA Tour including two White House visits to meet with US President Donald Trump, are ramping up bold plans to buy the famous Wentworth Golf Club in England, according to reports from The Daily Mail.
Wentworth is the headquarters of the DP World Tour, formerly named the European Tour, and hosts the tour’s flagship tournament, the BMW PGA Championship, annually.
The DP World Tour possess a strategic alliance with the PGA Tour and a take over of their home would no doubt be met with animosity by anti-LIV Golf people within men’s professional golf’s civil war.
Wentworth’s current owners, Chinese investment company the Reignwood Group, told the Daily Mail that the Surrey-based club they purchased for £135 million (A$275m) in 2014 is not for sale at present, and that no conversations have taken place with the Saudis.
But the PIF are determined to increase their presence in British golf, and are also believed to be looking at acquiring Centurion Golf Club, roughly 40km north of London, where LIV Golf played its inaugural event in 2022.
The reports seem to counter negotiations efforts, but the initial positivity around Trump’s involved appears to have been overblown.
The most recent White House meeting last month left keen observes underwhelmed as PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan confessed at last week’s The Players Championship that things had not gone to plan.
Australian Adam Scott, who was part of the PGA Tour delegation as a player director, shared that he believes the current sticking point is about LIV and the PGA Tour operate side-by-side going forward.
The 2013 Masters champion called for urgency in getting the situation resolved, but Players champion Rory McIlroy shared his view recently that a merger “doesn’t feel like it’s any closer”.
The Daily Mail’s report stated that insiders have read the Saudi interest in acquiring Wentworth as a tactic to force the PGA Tour into a deal.
Despite the strategic alliance, the option remains open to the DP World Tour to create its own arrangement with LIV Golf, albeit it is unlikely.
Talks about a potential Saudi purchase of Wentworth first ramped up in November last year, when English DP World Tour player Eddie Pepperell claimed he “was told this week by someone who would know that they are buying Wentworth”.
“The PIF are buying Wentworth, for sure. That’s what I was told,” Pepperell said.
The latest reports indicate that the interest has not subsided despite LIV Golf reportedly having so far cost roughly £4 billion since it began in 2022.
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