Rory McIlroy Echoes President Re-Elect for PGA/LIV Merger
Nearly a year and a half ago the PGA and LIV golf leagues announced they would begin the work to “reunify” golf, shocking the golf world and leaving many confused as to what modern golf would look like. Since then, there has been little to no change as both organizations struggle to maneuver through the maze of red tape and personal interests. The biggest obstacles are navigating the antitrust laws that surround the two giants and ensuring the merger does not collapse the professional golfers who stayed loyal to the PGA. Players like Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods turned down contracts reaching a billion dollars and are expected to see some reparations for their loyalty.
Recently British tabloids have stated that the merger was completed, and a deal was met between the leagues however, this was quickly disproven. This premature announcement comes after President Re-elect Donal Trump took to the podcast “Let’s Go!” and commented that once he was elected, he would secure a deal between the two leagues in “15 minutes”. Rory echoed his support of the president's re-elect statement going on to say he believed the president could help to focus the DOJ agenda on the issue and speed up some of the cutting of red tape. He also mentioned the president’s strong connection with Saudi Arabia, where the LIV Golf League is based, and how that relationship would also help to hasten the process.
The two leagues have agreed they wish to secure a deal before the end of the year as the worry of scheduling conflicts and the actual process of merging will take some time. It is important that leaders of players like Rory are invested in helping the leagues along as he carries pull with the players who may have missed out on large sums of money or players who wish to compete in both competitions. With support from political powers, the leagues should reach an agreement sooner rather than later to show the world what modern gold will look like. The predictions of this would be the two organizations keeping their leagues in order to avoid antitrust violations while being much more cordial and open to overlap of competition like “The Showdown” coming Dec. 17 a match between PGA giants Rory and Scottie Scheffler versus LIV stars Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka.
