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Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Writer
PGA Tour officials, including 15-time major champion Tiger Woods, are meeting with representatives from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in New York on Tuesday, sources confirmed to ESPN.
The sides are attempting to come to terms on a deal that would inject more than $1 billion from the PIF into PGA Tour Enterprises, the new for-profit entity launched by the tour and Strategic Sports Group.
The meetings are scheduled to last multiple days, sources told ESPN.
PGA Tour Enterprises chairman Joe Gorder and Fenway Sports Group owner John W. Henry are part of a transactional subcommittee that is negotiating with the Saudis, along with Woods and golfer Adam Scott.
The X flight tracking account radaratlas2 noted Tuesday that jets owned by Woods, the Saudi oil and natural gas company Aramco and the PGA Tour arrived in the New York area Monday.
The meetings between the PGA Tour and the PIF were criticized by the 9/11 Justice group Tuesday. The group of 9/11 survivors, first responders and family members of those killed in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, have accused the Saudi Arabian government of supporting the terrorists.
“Tomorrow, we commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, yet here we are today, in New York City, down the street from Ground Zero, and the PGA Tour and Tiger Woods are negotiating with them,” 9/11 Justice president Brett Eagleson said in a statement. “As has been confirmed in the last few weeks by CBS reporting, the Saudi Arabian government played a role in the horrific attacks of 9/11. It is disgusting, unacceptable, and incredibly painful that the Tour and Woods would do this — especially now.”
At last month’s Tour Championship in Atlanta, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said talks with the PIF have been “enhanced” and are “stronger” than they’d been in the past, hinting that a deal could be reached to bring the fractured sport back together.
The PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF, which has financed the rival LIV Golf League the past three years, signed a framework agreement on June 6, 2023, to form an alliance.
The deadline for that agreement expired Dec. 31, but the sides have continued to hammer out the details of a potential deal.
“I would say that the priority, it’s been enhanced,” Monahan said on Aug. 28. “It’s stronger. That’s a direct result of dialogue and conversation and really starting to talk about the future, future product vision and where we can take our sport.
“I think when you get into productive conversations, that enhances the likelihood of positive outcomes and that enhances the spirit of those very conversations. I think that’s where things stand.”