24 August 2023 , 17:17
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Golf legend Tom Watson believes the PGA Tour have made a "huge mistake" in their framework agreement with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF).
In June the Tour confirmed it had ended its 12-month feud with LIV Golf having reached an agreement with PIF that would see the two rival circuits work in unison alongside the DP World Tour. In the weeks that have followed PGA Tour bosses and PIF have continued negotiations, with a deadline of December 31 set.
Having been a critic of LIV and it's Saudi funding for some time, the Tour's decision to team up with the Middle Eastern backers received widespread backlash, especially from some of the biggest figures in the game.
One of those was eight-time major champion Watson, who penned a lengthy open letter to the Tour on which he won 39 titles, accusing the powers that be of 'hypocrisy'. Two months on the 79-year-old has reiterated his stance on the matter, and outlined where he believes Tour bosses went wrong in their handling of the deal and announcement.
"I think the Board needed a restructuring so that the players had voting power because this is a players’ organisation," Watson told the Five Clubs Podcast. "This organisation went outside of the due process. It wasn’t transparent at all. There were no players involved at all in the negotiations with PIF and Yasir [Al-Rumayyan]. That needed to be.
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Tom Watson claimed the PGA Tour have made a "huge mistake"“That was a huge mistake, I think, and I think the players thought so too. A single player needed to be involved in that, at least. We have people that are making decisions that are really shaping the future of PGA Tour golf and without player participation in those decisions, we’re going in the wrong direction.”
Watson's comments come in the same week Tour commissioner Jay Monahan shed some light on the current state of play between the Tour and PIF. Amid concerns over when the deal will be completed, Monahan reassured his doubters that he expects the deal to be finalised come January.
Speaking at this week's Tour Championship, he said: "We're confident that we're going to reach a positive outcome for the PGA Tour, and as it relates to reason not to believe or believe, you know, at this point, given what Tyler just outlined and what I said, no, I don't have any reason to think that we won't be successful."