With Trump back as president, Rory McIlroy thinks a LIV-PGA Tour deal is close

Rory McIlroy believes Donald Trump’s return to the White House will be good for professional golf.

McIlroy, the Jupiter resident, said Trump once again becoming president could result in the long-awaited deal between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour. Trump, the Palm Beach resident, won Tuesday’s presidential election.

“Given today’s news with what’s happened in America, I think that clears the way a little bit,” McIlroy told reporters at the DP World Tour’s Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. “So we’ll see.”

Trump’s adversarial relationship with the PGA Tour led to his becoming an advocate of LIV Golf, which is financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. LIV was started in 2022 by Greg Norman, a resident of Palm Beach Gardens.

“He might be able to (get a deal done),” said McIlroy, the four-time major winner. “He’s got Elon Musk, who I think is the smartest man in the world, beside him. We might be able to do something if we can get Musk involved, too.

“Yeah, I think from the outside looking in, it’s probably a little less complicated than it actually is. But obviously Trump has a great relationship with Saudi Arabia. He’s got a great relationship with golf. He’s a lover of golf. So, maybe. Who knows?”

McIlroy added: “But I think as the President of the United States again, he’s probably got bigger things to focus on than golf.”

Trump told Sirius XM’s ‘Let’s Go!’ he would get LIV-PGA deal done in 15 minutes

Trump told the Sirius XM podcast “Let’s Go!” he believes it would take him “the better part of 15 minutes” to get a deal done.

LIV Golf, which is headquartered in West Palm Beach, and the PGA Tour have been in ongoing negotiations for about 1 ½ years to combine commercial businesses and rights into a new for-profit company. That “merger,” later reframed as an “agreement,” still has not been finalized despite an original deadline of Dec. 31, 2023.

Revenge Tour: Donald Trump urges players to defect, predicts LIV Golf-PGA Tour merger

McIlroy said this summer that among the reasons the sides cannot agree is that half the players on both sides do not want an agreement along with the U.S. Department of Justice. The DOJ is headed by the U.S. attorney general, who reports directly to the president and is a member of the president’s Cabinet.

LIV just completed its third year. During that time, it has played six events on Trump properties, including three at Trump National Doral outside of Miami. Trump frequently has played in the LIV pro-am events at his courses.

One month after LIV’s inaugural event, Trump told PGA Tour golfers to, “take the money now.”

The message on his social media site also said: “All of those golfers that remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA, in all of its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you get nothing but a big ‘thank you’ from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year.”

Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Donald Trump back in White House good for pro golf, says Rory McIlroy