After winning the United States Presidential election this month, Donald Trump clearly has a full agenda as he prepares to take office in January and fill his cabinet. However, in an unexpected turn, it appears that he’s also allocating some of his time toward helping unify professional golf.
The PGA Tour and LIV Golf, two rival professional golf leagues, are currently in the midst of negotiations to explore a potential merger. However, the discussions have not been particularly productive, as the initial deadline for reaching an agreement passed more than 11 months ago.
Despite his already busy schedule, Trump seems to be dedicating some of his efforts to bridging the gap between the two leagues.
A report from the Washington Post reveals that Trump has been meeting with key individuals from both sides of the talks in an attempt to help facilitate a deal that could preserve the future of professional golf.
“Even as he was filling out his Cabinet selections Friday, the president-elect played a round of golf with Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, according to two people familiar with the meeting. And at a UFC event Saturday night in New York, Trump sat between Elon Musk, the billionaire tech mogul, and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the head of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which launched LIV Golf in 2022 to compete with the PGA Tour,” Rick Maese wrote for the Washington Post this weekend.
“While the exact nature of and details from the meetings are uncertain, multiple people familiar with the process say the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund continue to discuss a partnership, even though an initial deadline to agree to terms passed more than 11 months ago.”
This is some pretty shocking news given that Trump recently suggested that these negotiations were not a top priority for him, emphasizing that the country faces “much bigger problems” that require his attention.
“I would say it would take me the better part of 15 minutes to get that deal done,” Trump said the “Let’s Go!” podcast with Jim Gray and Bill Belichick earlier this month. “I’m really going to work on other things, to be honest with you. I think we have much bigger problems than that. But I do think we should have one tour and they should have the best players in that tour.”
Needless to say, this shocking news led to a lot of reactions in the comments of the story.
“Yeah.. That is such a priority… Sorting out LIV and the PGA,” one person wrote in the comments.
“Gee. There’s a problem that was clearly a focus of the election,” another person added.
“Of course. The most important issues facing the new administration revolve around where to play professional golf tournaments. Glad our man has his priorities straight,” another person wrote.
“Trump focusing on the important things,” someone else added sarcastically.
“Good to know what Trump’s priorities seem to be – golf,” another person wrote.
“I’m so glad president-elect Trump is laser focused on the most important issues facing the United States of America. A statesman of the finest refinement,” someone else wrote sarcastically.
Obviously, these are just the reactions of some regular everyday people, but it’s a pretty good sampling of what people think about the news.
Regardless, it will be interesting to see whether or not Trump can help the two sides broker a deal.
