It was once billed as a hostile takeover of professional golf. With unlimited financial firepower from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), LIV Golf burst onto the scene in 2022, luring major champions and igniting a civil war in the sport. At its loudest, the league challenged not just the PGA Tour’s control, but its very identity. Now, three years later, that aggressive tone has softened—and perhaps for the first time, so has its leadership’s stance.
On a recent appearance on The Rick Shiels Golf Show, LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil offered the clearest sign yet that his league has come to terms with its limitations. While confident about LIV’s global aspirations, O’Neil acknowledged the PGA Tour’s enduring dominance in the United States. “Uh, I think that LIV Golf will have a—will have a dominant position in global golf, will be the place you go for global golf,” he said, carefully distinguishing LIV’s international ambitions from any hope of U.S. supremacy.
O’Neil compared the dynamic to motorsports: LIV as golf’s Formula 1, and the PGA Tour as NASCAR—entrenched, expansive, and deeply American. He described the Tour’s 42-event schedule as sprawling but diluted, suggesting the Tour’s stars are too often spread thin across lesser-watched events. “And whether they shrink that—shrink that number—is kind of, like, that’s the general consensus: that they will shrink the number of events.”
I had the pleasure of sitting down with LIV CEO @ScottONeil and have just released a brand new podcast! https://t.co/JiiKGZbgbb
I didn’t hold back and asked some hard hitting questions! pic.twitter.com/ODJj4FFIVb
— Rick Shiels PGA (@RickShielsPGA) July 1, 2025
His conclusion was blunt but realistic: the PGA Tour’s stronghold on American golf isn’t going anywhere. “I think they’ll shrink their number, but I think they’ll always, you know, for the foreseeable future, have a dominant position in the U.S. And I think we’ll be the dominant player in the world.” That’s a significant rhetorical shift from the early LIV narrative, which pitched itself as a revolutionary alternative, not a complementary circuit. Now, the tone is one of coexistence—with LIV focused globally, and the PGA Tour reigning domestically.
O’Neil’s acknowledgment comes amid a period of strategic uncertainty for both leagues. While LIV continues to invest in expansion, it remains locked in a stalled merger process with the PGA Tour—a deal announced with great fanfare in 2023 but still unresolved more than two years later.
The LIV–PGA merger: A deal delayed by complexity
In June 2023, LIV Golf, the PGA Tour, and the DP World Tour signed a framework agreement to unify commercial operations. It was a stunning truce to end over a year of lawsuits, player suspensions, and public feuds. Yet, despite initial optimism, the merger has yet to close. The main reason? A web of unresolved tensions—legal, political, and structural. Soon after the agreement was announced, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an antitrust investigation, concerned the deal could consolidate too much power over men’s professional golf. As of July 2025, that investigation remains open, delaying any final approval.
At the same time, internal governance issues have emerged. PGA Tour players, many of whom remained loyal during LIV’s recruitment drive, are demanding equity in the new structure. They’ve also voiced discomfort over the lack of transparency in the original negotiations. Tour executives have promised greater player involvement, but a final format has not been publicly defined. Another obstacle: format differences. LIV’s team-based, shotgun-start model clashes with the PGA Tour’s traditional, individual, 72-hole structure. Sources close to both camps suggest this philosophical divide continues to stall the integration plan.
Even the arrival of PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp, a longtime friend of O’Neil’s, hasn’t been enough to break the deadlock. With both tours still running independently, the merger’s completion appears unlikely before the end of 2025, despite O’Neil feeling optimistic about it. Until then, golf remains in limbo—fractured, uncertain, and waiting for two very different visions to find a single fairway.
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