President Donald Trump weighed in on the ongoing drama surrounding LIV Golf after the Saudi Public Investment Fund pulled its funding of the rebel golf league.
The president told reporters inside the Oval Office on Thursday that he would like to see all the big-name players of the sport in one league and that playing against each other would be good for golf.
“I do believe that all of the golfers should be playing against each other. They were viewing something as a monopoly, but it’s swaying away. It should be the opposite of a monopoly,” Trump said. “I want to see Rory [McIlroy] playing Bryson DeChambeau. I want to see big Jon Rahm playing Scottie, who is so great. Scottie Scheffler is great.
“They have great players on LIV, but it’s almost like people want to see that. That’s why the Masters was so good, because you saw everybody together.”
The president, a golf enthusiast who had hosted leaders from the PGA Tour and then-LIV Golf chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan at the White House last year, predicted that LIV Golfers would be welcomed back to the PGA Tour “because they’re great.”
“There’s something nice about all of the players playing together. Now they’ll all be accepted by the tour, there’s no question, because they’re great,” Trump said. “The tour wants to have the best players. You can’t have the best player that they’re boycotting now.
“They may do something, you know, a little bit, but they’ll all be back on tour, and it’ll be great.”
LIV announced officially on Thursday that it would be seeking long-term financial partners in order to keep things going beyond 2026. The situation raised the prospects of players attempting to return to the PGA Tour.
A report from Golf Digest on Wednesday suggested that multiple LIV Golf players had already had their reps touch base with the PGA Tour about a possible return.
The report did not name specific golfers.
The pathway back could also be highly complicated, with the PGA Tour potentially adding hurdles to any return after a number of golfers defected to LIV in 2022.
