Tiger Woods joins golf’s secret Bahamas meeting as merger takes key step

Golf legend Tiger Woods reportedly joined members of the PGA Tour policy board in the Bahamas this week for the resumption of negotiations with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan.

On Tuesday AEDT, a team led by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan travelled to the Caribbean to meet with Al-Rumayyan, re-starting the process of mapping out a plan to unify the game.

According to reports, Woods was one of the tour’s player directors that joined the “meet-and-greet”, with flight-tracking accounts placing the 48-year-old’s jet in the Bahamas.

The meeting is a key step for a total unification in the men’s pro game with a framework agreement between the PGA Tour and PIF — made public last June — yet to become anything concrete.

A self-imposed deadline of December 31 to ratify the deal came and went, while the PGA Tour ultiamtely struck a seperate deal with a group of US billionaires that reportedly raised its value to $12 billion (A$18.3bn).

This came after PIF poached megastar Jon Rahm for LIV Golf, thus escalating tensions with the PGA Tour further.

But those tensions could be cooling again with this week’s meeting in the Bahamas potentially paving the way towards a deal.

Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis reported that future talks between the parties would focus on how much the PIF, which funds Greg Norman’s breakaway tour, would invest in the PGA Tour and potential pathways for return of LIV Golf players.

“I imagine I’ll do a lot more listening than talking. I’m excited to hear what I will learn and I’ll have a lot more information after,” PGA player director Patrick Cantlay said this week.

“I doubt we’ll get into anything substantive in the first meeting, just more of a meet and greet.

“If there’s a deal that could be struck that’s in the best interest of the entire membership, I’m all for it. And, if there’s not, there’s not.”

Irish golf star Rory McIlroy, one of LIV Golf’s staunchest critics when it first started poaching players, has softened his stance since the PIF made an agreement with the PGA Tour that could end the game’s civil war.

“Absolutely, I think it should have happened months ago, so I am glad that it’s happening,” McIlroy said of the meeting, which was initially expected to take place in Florida.

“Hopefully, that progresses conversations and gets us closer to a solution.”

The path back to the PGA Tour for LIV players remains a point of contention, but McIlroy wasn’t sure there would be movement in the short term, should a deal be finalised.

“It’s going to require patience. People have contracts at LIV up until 2028, 2029,” he said.

“I don’t know if they’re going to see that all the way out, but I definitely see LIV playing in its current form for the next couple years while everything gets figured out.

“(It’s not) an overnight solution, but if we can get the investment in, then at least we can start working towards a compromise.”