PGA Tour feared it would be ruined by LIV Golf without unifying deal

‘If they take five players a year for five years, they gut us’

SWORN IN: (L-R) Chief Operating Officer of the PGA Tour Ron Price and PGA Tour Policy Board member Jimmy Dunne are sworn in during a Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations hearing examining the business deal between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia's LIV Golf on Capitol Hill July 11, 2023 in Washington, DC. In early June, the PGA Tour and LIV Golf announced plans for a framework agreement to create a new global golf entity, which will be heavily funded by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Pic: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Senior officials on the PGA Tour feared that their organisation could be reduced to ruin by the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf without a deal, they conceded on Tuesday.

Documents retrieved by a US Senate committee investigating the controversial framework agreement reached between the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and Saudi’s Public Investment Fund also show plans from three months ago involved Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy playing under the LIV umbrella.