In PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp\u2019s first state of the tour address this week in Atlanta, he did not mince words<\/a> about possible plans for reunification.<\/p>\n \u201cI would offer to you that the best collection of golfers in the world are on the PGA Tour,\u201d Rolapp said. \u201cThere\u2019s a bunch of metrics that demonstrate that, from rankings to viewership to whatever you want to pick. I\u2019m going to lean into that and strengthen that. \u2026 To the extent we can do anything that\u2019s going to further strengthen the PGA Tour, we\u2019ll do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Related to strengthening the product, Rolapp announced a new committee<\/a> \u2014 helmed by Tiger Woods \u2014 that would be charged with reimagining the tour\u2019s competitive product. He made clear he will not be slow to action, using the word \u201caggressive\u201d six times throughout his press conference.<\/p>\n The tour has been well served by tradition over the years. It\u2019s an important part of what it is. And while Rolapp said he plans to honor that tradition, it\u2019s not something he\u2019ll be married to as he navigates the tour\u2019s future. <\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s honor tradition but not be overly bound by it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to have a more honest conversation about what\u2019s best for the tour and what we need to do to make it more compelling for the players and for the fans. That\u2019s always going to be my lens, first and foremost.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Monahan is expected to exit by the end of 2026. Still unknown are the tour\u2019s post-Monahan plans. Sources believe the tour eventually will hire another commissioner who will report to Rolapp, and the position likely will be more competition-based, or \u201cceremonial\u201d as some sources have described. <\/p>\n LIV\u2019s latest moves<\/p>\n LIV has taken an entirely different approach under Scott O\u2019Neil, the league\u2019s CEO since early 2025. Over its first three years under Greg Norman, LIV took the disrupter route. O\u2019Neil has maintained that LIV wants to be the \u201cwhite hats\u201d in the ongoing men\u2019s golf saga. <\/p>\n LIV continues to double down on its teams. Purses are going from $25 million to $30 million next year, with the additional dollars being pumped back into the teams. Some franchises have upward of 20 staff members. Ping and Callaway Golf both put their names on teams. 4 Aces GC is now working with WME on sponsorship sales. <\/p>\n LIV also has started to cut through more at the event level. It drew 43,000 over three days at its U.K. event the week after the Open Championship. It expected close to 40,000 for its Chicago tournament, and its tournament in Indianapolis<\/a> recently was estimated to have around 60,000 fans. <\/p>\n Future years could see expansion to more teams, and there\u2019s been increased industry chatter about the league moving to a 72-hole format. It\u2019s also had more commercial success, signing deals with Qualcomm, HSBC<\/a> and Salesforce<\/a>, among other deals with companies owned by the Saudi PIF. Likely helping commercial matters in 2026 will be Chris Heck, the league\u2019s new president<\/a> who spent the last 2\u00bd years overhauling Aston Villa\u2019s business. <\/p>\n But LIV faces a number of remaining issues. The league still doesn\u2019t have Official World Golf Ranking points, though it\u2019s engaged in the process again. Also, the DP World Tour, which has a strategic partnership with the PGA Tour, continues fining LIV players every time they compete in a conflicting event. The London Telegraph estimated that LIV has paid the DP World Tour $20 million since the fines were first implemented. The Telegraph also reported that LIV will stop paying those fines starting next year, meaning that onus will be on the league\u2019s franchises.<\/p>\n The Money in Sport newsletter reported recently that the PIF would have spent an estimated $5 billion on LIV funding by the end of 2025. <\/p>\n On the television side, LIV signed a much-ballyhooed deal with Fox last offseason and added international deals with networks such as ITV in the U.K. and DAZN. While international numbers haven\u2019t been available, LIV has not resonated domestically, at least from a linear TV perspective. Its highest viewership this season through 14 windows on the main Fox network was just 484,000 for its Miami tournament in April.<\/p>\n But O\u2019Neil has maintained that LIV is a global league. Of its 14 events in 2026, nine are expected to be played outside the U.S.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ll (the PGA Tour) for the foreseeable future have a dominant position in the U.S. and I think we\u2019ll be the dominant player in the world,\u201d O\u2019Neil said recently. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The reunification of men\u2019s professional golf has been one of the most talked-about topics in the industry over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,14239,1747,48702,85,65363],"class_list":["post-87620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-liv-golf","tag-pga-tour","tag-print","tag-sports","tag-upfront"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Scott](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/5GZAFPZCPNFCVEYBXQNQFECGJA.jpg\")
Scott O’Neil joined LIV Golf as CEO earlier this year. Icon Sportswire via Getty Images <\/p>\n